


The Great Escape

by Castiel_For_King



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Big Brother Mycroft, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Flashbacks, He tries so hard, John is a Good Friend, John/Mary is brief, Johnlock - Freeform, PTSD Sherlock, Protective John, Sherlock Is Not Okay, Suicide Attempt, Unstable Sherlock, but under shitty circumstances, happy ending I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-04 02:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiel_For_King/pseuds/Castiel_For_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's mind has ruptured...and he didn't even notice until it was spilling it's contents like a broken jello mold.  The lines between what he thought was real and what he wished was real start to unravel and Sherlock finds himself trapped in the clutches of his own broken mind, with no way to escape.</p><p>Luckily, he has his conductor of light to lead him out of the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Telling John

The ground is cold under his naked body. Colder than dirt had any right to be. It was January...or at the very least no later than March, and the earth was a frozen mass beneath him, ice adhering to his skin, cramping his muscles, keeping him _still_. It burned like fire but crystallized his nerves, made them brittle, and filled his head with numbing fog that clung and froze to the inside of his skull and lungs, making it hard to think and impossible to breathe.

Through the onslaught of suffocating sensations, the sound of well worn boots crunching the frozen gravel a few feet from his head had a stab of panic lancing through the tightness in his chest and he jerked against the rough bed of dirt. An attempt to open his eyes was only partially successful and the dirty, reddish glow of the old lamp in the corner of his cell shifted nauseatingly around him; he tried not to gag on the congealed blood clogging his throat like a dirty drainpipe.

For a moment his gaze caught on something smooth under the dirt near his right hand and he squinted down at it, a migraine hammering incessantly against the front of his skull.

It was wood, he realized, possibly an old floor board peeking through the damage of years and years of freezing and thawing...but no, that wasn't quite right, was it?

He blinked, feeling the pain in his head receding. Looking farther, he was able to spot more glimpses of flat, worn, wooden floor boards that seemed to be multiplying with every sweep of his gaze across the floor.

The ice freezing his blood and nerve endings started to ebb as well and for a moment he swore he could breathe a little easier. The rhythmic ticking of a clock was obnoxious in the crushing silence of his cell. Three feet of concrete on five sides of him meant the clock had to be _in_ the room – he'd have nerver heard the soft _tick tick tick_ otherwise. But that wasn't quite right either. There was no clock in this room, he would have noticed.

With a slight, stiff, turn of his head, Sherlock found it, hanging high on the wall, mocking him.

No, _no_ , something was _wrong_ , he would never have missed something so obvious and he glared at the offending time piece until reality flickered like a faulty connection, scrambling the texture of the decrepit and crumbling concrete enclosure and rearranging the pixels of dirt and grime to reveal the walls of his own kitchen.

Sherlock sighed, the breath shuddering out of his chest, and swallowed around the lack of blood in his throat.

Just a memory. It was _just_ a memory.

His fingers curled like claws, nails digging in to the hard, _warm_ wood floorboards. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, even when he balled them into fists and wedged them between his chest and the floor. That only seemed to make the shaking spread to the rest of his body and, for a moment, he thought he might have felt something in him crack, like a concrete pillar in an earthquake.

_Just a memory_ , he told himself again, willing his breathing to slow and his heart to stop hammering against his ribs.

But his body refused to listen to reason, and he had to close his eyes against a wave of dizziness, the soft edges of his kitchen blurring in the orange light of the street lamps spilling through the windows.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock stared down at the cup of tea sitting in front of him, willing it to reheat itself by force of will alone. Of course, he possessed no magical abilities, so nothing at all happened. With a sigh, he rose and left the cup sitting where it was, shuffling to his bedroom to change into some proper battle attire. He vaguely remembered making the tea and then...he'd went to pick it up and the porcelain had been cold under his fingers.

He'd only been home a few days, though it felt both shorter and longer than that. There were a few gaps in his memory between now and when he'd first walked back through his front door and he'd tried in vain to recall, but could dig up little else than fuzzy glimpses of memories that did not fit into their proper time slots here at Baker Street – memories that had an icy shard of dread lodging itself into his spine.

It was fine, he was sure. There was bound to be some sort of adjustment period after being plucked out of the middle of a torture cell in Serbia after living two solid years of constantly looking over his shoulder. Running, flitting from dirty hovel to dirtier hovel, running, _killing_ , running, running, _running_...

A breath punched itself out of his chest and the plastic hanger slipped through his fingers, sending the pressed suit crumbling in a heap at his feet. 

He stared down at it, annoyed and feeling his legs tingle like the blood had suddenly left them, leaving him in danger of following his suit to the floor. Stubbornly, he took a few shaky steps over to his unmade bed and sat there instead, retaining at least a small amount of dignity...not that there was anyone around to witness it should he collapse. No one had been around the other times...surely they wouldn't have left him to come to on the floor if they had been.

His gaze flicked up from his own pale toes and over to the suit, sitting there like it dared him to try and pick it up and get the wrinkles and creases out. He made his way over and pulled it off the floor, hooking the hanger over the edge of the wardrobe again, his keen gaze tracing over the obvious imperfections – imperfections that remained no matter how many times he swiped his hand over them in an attempt to lessen their appearance.

He was going to tell John today. He was going to tell John he was not dead and back in London and it made him feel sick with apprehension.

He wasn't entirely stupid – at least not since Mycroft had gently explained to him that John's reception would likely be anything but warm – there was very little chance that John would simply forgive and forget what he'd done; even if he'd done it to _save John_.

Sherlock gingerly pulled the thin t-shirt over his head, grimacing when it caught on the bandages plastered across his back, tugging on partially healed wounds, and for a moment he balked at the irony.

Is that what he was doing by telling John he was alive? Pulling at wounds that had likely only just healed? Skin delicate and pink and ready to give at the slightest tug...

The fine silk of his dress shirt was cool against his skin and he buttoned it slowly, his fingers shaking a little. Next came the jacket and the dress pants and the shined shoes – all Mycroft's doing. He'd have never taken the time or had the energy or interest to do all this himself. He'd spent the last two months curled in a naked ball in a freezing cell in Serbia and two years before that wearing whatever he could get his hands on that didn't make him stick out too much; sometimes he got lucky and they were actually somewhat clean. Armani and Boss now just seemed...strange and ridiculous.

When everything was in place, he could feel the unyielding fabric pull taut against his shoulders and back, restricting his arm movements, and for a split second a stab of panic rocked him, exploding in his chest and sending shrapnel up into his throat. He needed a full range of motion, he _needed_ to be able to reach all the weapons he had stashed around his body. He needed...

He was a hair away from ripping the shirt off his torso but the sound of snapping fibers stopped him, fingers twisted in the silk.

_It's fine_ , he reminded himself. _It's all fine_.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

Slowly, joints moving like rusted gears, Sherlock released his own shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles as best he could with one shaking hand, and readjusted the suit jacket.

He forced himself to turn and look into the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. He'd lost weight, John would notice right away, no designer suit was enough to cover that up, and Mycroft had done too good a job at judging his new measurements. His skin was the kind of pale that only came with hardly seeing a ray of sun in two years – which he hadn't. Sun was too bright, lit up every corner and left nowhere to hide. His hair was messy, the curls all laying on top of each other from where he'd run his fingers through them, leaving it a tangled, wispy mess around his face.

He looked as tired as he felt – not unexpected given he hadn't truly slept since returning to Baker Street – and the man standing in the mirror in a fine suit didn't look real. Like he was playing dress-up, stubbornly chasing the image of someone and something that had died long ago.

The reflection was hardly lying and Sherlock turned away, unable to look at it anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Telling John had gone about as well as Mycroft had predicted and Sherlock told himself that it was both pointless and stupid to feel disappointed, though he still winced if he thought back on the last hour too much.

Mycorft had given him the address of John and Mary's home and with every rotation of the cab's tires Sherlock's hands shook a little harder. He wondered when things had shifted in his own mind to accept that going round to 'John and Mary's' sounded more natural than 'Sherlock and John's'. When had he lost that image of them being together under the same roof as something believable? He was sure there was a triggering moment – something that had happened over the last two years – that could explain it but looking that closely at those kinds of memories was not something he could do in a taxi, not when it already felt as if his heart was trying to break itself free of his chest.

John hadn't been home when he'd knocked on the door.

_Mary – a blond woman with kind but sharp eyes – answered the door and he managed to ask if her husband was home. They weren't married yet, or even engaged, Sherlock knew this so he wasn't sure why he'd said it._

_But she took it in stride and gave him a small, guarded smile, her eyes flicking to the street behind him as if looking for something she couldn't quite grasp._

“ _He's at work,” she told him before asking who she might relay the message for._

Sherlock's fingers slipped in their haste to get the tight silk shirt _off_ , the memories of the last hour rushing back at him.

_An unexpected clump of terror rose in his throat as he opened his mouth to give her his name and he snapped his jaw closed, swallowing. Two years of trying to bury that name in fear of being killed had obviously wedged itself deeper into his subconscious than he'd like to admit...though perhaps it had less to do with the fear of his saying his own name and more to do with finally_ telling John _._

“ _Sherlock,” his voice sounded strained even to his own ears and bile inched up his throat._

_Her face went deathly pale so quickly Sherlock worried she might faint, but then her eyes were sweeping over him and she was ushering him into the house. Questions were pushed on him as gently as the cup of tea into his cold hands and he tried his best to answer them but, judging by the anxious look on her face he may not have answered any at all._

_There were pictures around on a clean, dust free mantle, of John and Mary hugging, laughing and staring into each others' eyes. The décor was tasteful and minimalist and everything seemed to have a proper place – the entire room was organized within an inch of it's life. He might have had the where-with-all to find it dull if he wasn't so busy trying not to vomit on their spotless white carpet._

“ _Sherlock?”_

_He looked up at Mary and noticed she seemed even more anxious now than she had been a few moments ago. But when she reached down and took his untouched cup of tea, the porcelain slid cold against his fingers. He'd done it again. Where was his mind going? It was most troubling._

“ _Sherlock, he'll be home any moment,” Mary was telling him, setting the tea on the small table next to the plush chair she'd guided him to._

“ _How long have I been here?” he asked her, eyes snapping to the clock over the fireplace. It told him nothing, he hadn't noted the time when he'd walked in._

_Her mouth dropped open, another worried frown marring her pretty face. She might have answered him, but at that moment the front door opened, the sound carrying down the hall and to the sitting room where he and Mary waited._

_Sherlock felt his body lock up._

_John was here. It was time._

_The air in the room thinned and his head swam woozily as Mary rushed out of the room and disappeared down the hall._

_In three seconds flat Sherlock's mind managed to conjure up all the ways that breaking this news to John probably would have been better, but it was all too late now and he'd come this far, he wasn't going to back out. The sooner he got it over with the sooner he could let John get his anger out and it would all be just...done._

_Mary was speaking, hushed and frantic but trying to appear calm, and her voice was getting louder until suddenly there John stood in the doorway to the sitting room, briefcase clutched in his hand and face a blackened thundercloud._

_Sherlock's legs pushed him to his feet faster than his brain could give the command, adrenalin flooding his veins with practiced ease and fingers twitching to grab weapons that were no longer there. The space in the back of his pants was lacking his hand gun and the shoes he wore now were missing the foot long hunting knife he usually kept in his boot. There were no blades up each sleeve and his hands curled into defensive fists at his sides, feet inching out into a more stable stance._

_John was yelling._

_Sherlock blinked, his pulse thudding in his ears. John...he was in_ John's house _._

_He let his hands uncurl and sucked a deep breath into his lungs._

_The briefcase went sailing through the air, knocking a picture off the wall and Sherlock watched it shatter into a few jagged pieces on the carpeted floor. John was still yelling – Sherlock could see his mouth moving – but Mary standing still and silent behind her soon to be husband caught his gaze and they locked eyes. She looked sad and worried, her small hand clutching at her chest_

_Then he found he was staring at the floor and it was much too close to his face, the pristine white carpet blossoming with red before his eyes. It was him, he realized, he was crying blood. No, that wasn't right. He curled his bottom lip into his mouth, feeling the wetness and tasting the tang wash over his tongue._

_His stomach lurched at the taste of his own blood, memories of his captors pushing a knife past his lips flashing behind his eyelids._

No _. He told himself firmly. He's in_ London _now. He's in_ John's living room _._

_He felt the leg of the sofa against his back and leaned against it, raising his eyes to see John staring down at him, angry and shaking but seeming to have lost some steam. Sherlock's gaze dropped to John's hands, noting the smear of red on his knuckles and he lifted his own pale fingers to his mouth, feeling the split in the skin but not the sting of it._

_His fingers came away red and he stared down at the harshness of the vivid color on the backdrop of grey all around him._

After that his memory sort of dissolved and Sherlock had a vague recollection of small hands urging him to his feet, the sound of a cab door closing off to his right and now here he stood, back in his own living room as if he'd never left.

In hind sight, he probably shouldn't have.


	2. Just A Magic Trick

Color bled slowly back into the world over the hours following his confession and Sherlock sat slumped on his couch, having rid himself of the ridiculous suit, shedding it like an old skin and leaving it on the floor in a pile.

It was dark outside when he finally felt the cramp in his neck, creeping into his awareness, looking for attention. He blinked around his living room, feeling more of the aches and pains registering again now that he'd...come back.

Sitting up properly was a bit of a chore but he managed it, wincing around the sharp stabs of pain in his ribs and back. The bandages across his shoulders were stiff, they tugged at his skin, and though he could not see to confirm it, he was sure it was dried blood. Being knocked to the floor in John's living room had likely jostled the healing wounds and when he stood and walked to the bathroom, he gave the pile of designer clothes a kick, noting the dark red smears on the back of the silk shirt.

With a hiss of a breath, he reached up behind his back and tore the bandages off roughly, then turned to start the shower.

 

* * *

 

Word seemed to spread after his encounter with John and soon, Sherlock's phone was constantly beeping with text alerts. He'd asked Mycroft for a new number upon his return, but his brother had merely pressed the old phone into his hands with a smirk.

Some texts were from Molly, saying she was glad he was safe and back home. A couple were from Lestrade – all in caps and with an angry intonation that eventually petered off into more legible confessions of his gratitude and relief. One from Mycroft asking how  _It_ went.

One from an unknown number, asking if he was alright. Mary. She must have stolen a look at John's phone and his heart gave a hollow ache when he realized the doctor had never deleted it from his contacts.

He entered her information, but didn't answer.

Two more days passed in a haze. He didn't know what do to with himself now. It had been years since he'd had nothing to do. No target to kill. No border to smuggle himself across. No stake out to plan. He moved from his bed, to the sofa, to the shower – staring at his ceiling, then the living room light fixture, then the tiled wall. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually the text messages stopped, but only because people started knocking on his door instead.

Lestrade came first, giving a preliminary rap of his knuckles against the wood before pushing the door open with a wide grin on his face – a grin that faltered when his eyes landed on the detective, sitting on the floor with his back against John's old chair and a lit cigarette dangling between his thin fingers. It was day five since he returned to London and he had decided to sit on the floor and watch the fire Mrs. Hudson had started for a change, instead of watching the ceiling light.

The DI swallowed and closed the door behind him gently, before turning and sweeping his gaze over the younger man, no doubt taking in the weight loss, exhausted posture and a dozen other telling signs that even Lestrade would notice.

Sherlock felt frozen with dread, wondering just what was coming. He could not take pity, but Lestrade was never one to pity, he reminded himself. He tired to speak, even opened his mouth, but nothing came out and he snapped his jaw shut, turning his attention back to the fire place.

“What do you need, Sherlock?” Lestrade asked in that kind, patient, pained voice he used to get whenever he found out Sherlock had relapsed.

It made the detective wince and he flicked the half smoked cigarette into the fireplace, wishing the now empty space between his fingers held a syringe.

Lestrade seemed to know what to make of his silence and headed straight for the kitchen. Sherlock could hear him opening and closing cupboards and the fridge, digging through produce and other things Mrs. Hudson had stocked in there after his return. The kettle was turned on and Sherlock thought to protest, recalling that none of the cups of tea that had been made for him since he got back had been touched.

That was a sad and oddly sobering thought. He'd not had a cup of tea in over two years. Suddenly he could not even recall what it tasted like and he closed his eyes against the strange twist in his chest that caused.

Lestrade had moved deeper into his apartment; Sherlock knew what he was doing – what he was looking for – and didn't bother saying anything.

How the  _hell_ would he have managed to find drugs in the last five days? He couldn't even find the way to a cup of tea.

In a sudden wave of rage that crashed over him, Sherlock kicked out and sent his armchair toppling backwards, watching with satisfaction as it crashed into the floor lamp behind it, snapping the cheap column of plastic and folding the lamp in half, exposing the wires that had been encased inside like veins.

He stared at it coolly, feeling irrationally vindicated, as if the lamp had done him some injustice. He only wished it could bleed.

Lestrade came charging back into the sitting room at the noise, looking a little too worried for a moment before he spotted the overturned chair and broken lamp, then his shoulders slumped with something too close to relief.

Sherlock stared. "Thought I'd thrown myself out the window, then."

Lestrade straightened before he'd managed to grab the chair, fixing him with a shrewd look. "You're just dramatic enough to try."

"Please, if I was going to kill myself I..." he abruptly trailed off, his throat closing over.

He _had_ killed himself, as far as Lestrade and John and Mrs. Hudson were concerned. He'd been dead to them for those two years and now it didn't so much feel as if he was coming clean about a lie he'd told as he was clawing his way out of the grave he'd dug himself. They'd certainly all looked stricken enough, like they would have been more likely to believe he was a ghost than that he'd managed to give them the miracle they'd all asked for.

Maybe they regretted asking for it.

"You're not..." Lestrade seemed to be struggling to speak, his face grey and slack. "Sherlock tell me you're not thinking about shit like that."

It took him an embarrassing amount of time to catch on, but when he did, all he could muster was a self depreciating laugh – likely not the reassurance the DI was looking for. "After everything I managed to escape in the last two years the last thing on my mind is taking my own life. I'll live just to spite them all, if that's what it comes to." Though he certainly hoped it didn't.

Lestrade was nodding, looking unsure if he should believe the younger man's words or not. He righted the chair but left the lamp broken on the floor. Not much he could do with it anyway, Sherlock supposed.

"Right. I have to go. Took a long lunch," he paused, hovering in the doorway long enough to turn and freeze Sherlock with an uncharacteristic look of fondness. "I'm glad you're back, Sherlock. Really. And even though I don't understand why you did it in the first place, I'm sure you had a good reason," his brown eyes turned softer, almost pleading, and Sherlock had to look away. "If you need anything - _anything_ , you hear me? - call me, Sherlock."

The DI didn't leave until the detective had given him a half-hearted nod.

The next person to show up was Mycroft himself. No more than two hours after Lestrade, his usual lofty self but missing the umbrella hooked over his arm. He'd been in a hurry to get there and Sherlock wondered what Greg might have told his brother.

"I am not suicidal," he sneered when he spotted his brother standing in the middle of his sitting room. "I even managed to shower on my own," he added, petulantly giving his head a shake and hitting Mycroft with a few droplets of water from his wet hair as he walked past, clutching the towel securely around his waist.

When the usual rebuttal did not reach his ears, Sherlock peered over his shoulder, expecting his brother to meet him with a glare, but his gut dropped through the floor when he found Mycroft's eyes fixed on his back where a spattering of whip marks were still trying to heal between his shoulders. Immediately, he turned, facing his brother and squaring his shoulders.

Mycroft sighed, raising his eyes to meet those of his younger brother. "I wish you would leave your childish pride behind and allow me to -"

Sherlock balked. "Me?! _I'm_ the one who's too prideful, am I? It wasn't _my_ pride that earned me these injuries, Mycroft, it was _yours_!"

It had been a long time since he'd managed to off-balance his brother but Sherlock took some satisfaction in the way he managed to verbally backhand the older man. Mycroft looked like he'd just been slapped, his face going two shades paler, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

"Sherlock, I'm s-"

"You've never apologized for anything in your life, Mycroft, don't start now."

For a moment, Mycroft looked like he was about to say something else and Sherlock waited, sure that his brother would be unable to resist getting the last word in. But, astonishingly, Mycroft gave a short nod, his eyes on the floor, and _left_.

In his brother's sudden absence, and the threat of an argument gone, Sherlock felt bone weary and it took everything he had just to stumble to his bedroom and hit the bed when he let himself fall.

 

* * *

 

"John, something is wrong with him," Mary insisted again.

He glanced over at her. Her arms were crossed but her fingers were digging too hard into her forearms and her brow was furrowed in the way that meant she was both worried and frustrated with him, but he couldn't seem to muster the energy to care.

Because Sherlock _fucking_ Holmes had just been standing in his sitting room.

Anger was thrumming through him like magma in his veins and he was sure that he was gouging little crescent shapes into the palms of his hands, but the pain didn't register.

The fucking _lunatic_. The psychotic, _inhuman_ -

"John!" Mary finally snapped. "Stop," her small hands grabbed at him and she planted herself firmly in the path of his pacing.

He finally looked down at her, pushing a breath through his nose like an angry bull, and saw her face soften, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. He leaned into the touch, the anger coursing through him so close to dissolving into heartbreak that he was scared to let it go. Anger was so much easier to deal with than sadness – than _betrayal_.

"John, I know you're angry right now, and you have every right to be, but you need to calm down."

He nodded shortly, opening his eyes to focus on her once more. She was right, of course. She usually was.

"Yeah. Yeah. Ok," he sucked a breath through his nose and then slowly released it, feeling the tightness in his chest ease a little.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a glinting shard of glass from the picture he'd knocked off the wall and a twinge of shame cooled the heat coursing through him. He loathed losing control, it was always so explosive. But Sherlock brought that out in people, didn't he? His mouth twisted down unhappily, realizing, _again_ , how everything he'd gone through in the last two years had been a lie – nothing but a _game_ to Sherlock – and through the sting of it, all John could keep wondering was _why_? _Why_ would the detective do something like that to him?

"You want a drink?" Mary asked him after a moment of silence.

He gave another short nod and pulled away, dropping onto the sofa and staring listlessly at the broken glass on the floor by the wall, feeling numb.

Everything...all of it. The shattering grief. The depression. The mourning. _The fucking funeral._ It had all been nothing but a lie.

A trick. Just a magic trick. And he'd fallen for it.

Wiping a hand down his face, John closed his eyes, taking another deep breath and thinking back on the shitstorm that had just taken place in his sitting room. Well, to be fair, _he'd_ been the one causing most of the commotion, Sherlock had just stood there passively, his pale eyes wide and cautious.

He frowned.

Now that he thought about it – now that he was calm enough that he _could_ think about it – had Sherlock said anything at all? He quickly skimmed through the scene in his head. No. Sherlock hadn't said a single word. He'd made no attempt to defend himself or explain his actions – he'd just... _watched_.

Mary came and went, leaving his drink on the coffee table, but he didn't reach for it. Instead he made himself start at the beginning, back to when Mary had first whispered urgent words to him as soon as he was through the front door. She'd nearly been pleading with him, something about staying calm, and then he'd rounded the corner and saw _him_ sitting there, though he wasn't sitting for long. Sherlock's gaze had snapped away from the pictures on the mantle and over to John and he'd been on his feet instantly, his hands twitching like they itched to grab something from muscle memory alone.

' _A weapon,'_ John realized. ' _He'd been reaching for a weapon._ '

The idea that Sherlock was the one who had felt threatened in that moment both satisfied and worried him, it was a sickening combination.

For a moment afterwards Sherlock had looked...confused, but then had visibly calmed, his muscles softening. After that it was a bit of a blur. John remembered his anger peaking when Sherlock remained silent in the face of John's betrayal and outrage and John had lashed out. He winced, remembering how his fist had collided with Sherlock's face and the taller man had crashed to the floor, putting up all the fight of a rag doll. He'd expected anger or a grimace of pain or _something_ from the fiery, defiant detective but Sherlock's face had stayed eerily blank, staring down at the blood dripping from his mouth onto the carpet like he wasn't sure where it was coming from.

He looked over. The blood had dried, looking almost black against the white fibers. He'd still been yelling when Mary helped Sherlock to his feet and walked him out the door. Where the man had gone after that, John did not know.

' _And I don't care,_ ' he reminded himself belatedly.

It was surreal and he had to keep glancing over at the spattering of dried blood and the broken glass in order to remind himself that it had all actually happened. Sherlock was alive and back in London...like he'd never bloody left.

He leaned forward and plucked the tumbler of whiskey off the coffee table, taking a generous gulp and refusing to acknowledge it burning all the way down to his gut.

So much had happened in the last two years and it felt like an entire lifetime stretched between him, 221B and Sherlock Holmes, and he wondered how he could even begin to bridge the gaping chasm that had grown between them. Did he even _want_ to? He'd come so far that the idea of going after Sherlock and trying to...to do _anything_ felt like ripping the stitches out of a partially healed wound. Because, if he was being honest with himself, Sherlock's death – he scoffed and took another gulp of whiskey – was a wound that _had_ never and _would_ never fully heal. He'd sewn it shut and slapped a band-aid over it, enough to get through the day without too much discomfort, but it had never really healed.

If Sherlock had returned from the dead a year ago things might have been easier.

But he hadn't and so they weren't.

John threw back the rest of his drink.

 


	3. Baker Street Doll House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a pretty extreme moment of dissociation for Sherlock. The way I wrote it is based entirely on my own experience with dissaciative moments. Different people experience it differently but for me it is exactly as I discribe it in this chapter. I'm only saying this because if you've never had a dissociation episode, then Sherlock's perception of his surroundings might seem far fetched. Just remeber that it's really not.

It had only happened twice, Sherlock reasoned. Two times in six days – that was nothing to be concerned about – a lesser mind would have crumbled back in that dingy, icy cold cell.

With the edges of his vision still wobbling, Sherlock got to his feet and stepped gingerly around the shattered glass on the floor, trying very hard not to remember how the sound of it had sent him spiraling into another too-real memory. The television, he'd learned, was a very good distraction and he folded himself into one corner of the sofa, raising the remote to turn on something – anything – that could push back against the suffocating silence of his cell – his _flat_ , he corrected – and keep him grounded.

It was lingering still, right there on the edges of his consciousness, and Sherlock gave his head a little shake, as if to dislodge it. It held fast – that niggling little sense of _doubt_ – and a tingle of worry trickled down his spine like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt.

Was this real? It was difficult to tell when the feel of cold concrete under his back momentarily eclipsed the leather couch, the chill crawling down his spine circled around his ribs and pushed insistently up his throat.

Sherlock grabbed his left arm with his right hand, trying and failing to keep the panic from stealing the air from his lungs. He dug his fingernails into the soft, sensitive skin under his wrist _hard_ , but the pain it caused seemed just as faded as the white noise from the television and the too dim light in the kitchen, and the more Sherlock looked around his sitting room the stranger everything started to look.

It was as if he was looking into a doll house; the furniture, the wall paper, the flashing light from the TV, it all looked fake – make believe – and even as Sherlock told himself that these were all _his_ things, that the flat looked the same as it had for the last several years, it still looked foreign. Alien.

He dug his nails into his skin harder, until he could feel the tendons in his arms crushing against the surrounding muscle.

Or perhaps it was _him_ that was out of place. Maybe _he_ was the doll, in his own reconstructed sitting room, like someone had dropped him there on the little plastic sofa. With a numb and twisted flicker of amusement, he wondered if he should add this little Baker Street doll house to his mind palace.

A terrible, ugly, wisp of a thought occurred to him then, and he tried to delete it immediately. Tried to shove it away, but it held fast and dug in it's claws.

Sherlock's stomach heaved and he desperately increased the grip on his arm, but the pain ebbed and gave him nothing substantial to hold on to. He felt adrift, like he was floating inside this little plastic room. What if the reason it all looked fake – _unreal –_ was because it wasn't real at all? What if he was _already in_ his mind palace?

The idea was too horrific to consider and he tried to focus instead on the feeling of his radius and ulna grinding against each other, because if he _was_ in his mind palace that meant his body was somewhere else. The question was, _where was he?_ Because there was no logical reason his subconscious would try to trick him with this terrible Baker Street doll house if he was already in his flat to begin with. And _this..._ this room, this furniture, those books, weren't real – couldn't _possibly_ be real. They were just painted onto the walls.

Sherlock got to his feet, trying to appear calm even though there was no one around to see anyway.

Fake. It was all fake. He looked over at the blanket thrown over the back of the sofa and never had a piece of fabric looked more like a chunk of molded plastic.

The chill of concrete seeping through his t-shirt started to feel more real than anything else around him.

By now his entire hand had gone numb so he let go of his arm, turning it over to see the underside and noticing blandly that the motion of his own joints looked mechanical. He was almost surprised there there were no cuts in his skin, allowing for the movement.

Feeling detached from his own body, Sherlock looked down and saw four crescent moon gouges in the delicate skin under his wrist and a angry flush of red from his own grip.

He couldn't feel it. Drawn on, like makeup.

A voice drifted up behind him.

“Sherlock?”

It was John's voice – of course it was – but it sounded hollow, like he was listening from inside a glass dome, and he turned haltingly, in careful steps, afraid to look up and see a plastic John staring back at him with painted blue eyes.

He calculated the probability of John _actually_ being here, in his flat, so soon after... _after_. It was more than unlikely, it was impossible given what he knew about the man. John would need days to calm down enough to even think about coming over. Add to the fact that Sherlock hadn't heard the door opening down on the landing or any footsteps coming up the stairs. John had simply...appeared. Materialized out of thin air like a granted wish.

Sherlock's gaze landed on John's sensible shoes first and he swallowed, dragging his eyes from the floor to look at the man.

He shouldn't, he knew that. Acknowledging the fabrication of his own mind would do nothing but help solidify it's presence. But he couldn't help it. He _missed_ John and this may very well be the only way he'd get to see him.

A jolt of something unpleasant lanced through Sherlock's chest when he met John's weighted gaze and the fingers of his left hand tingled sharply as blood rushed back into them, the sensation seeming to leak through the bubble he was in like water through a cracked glass.

John looked much the same as he had earlier that day...or had it been yesterday? Had it even really happened at all? Sherlock frowned, trying to organize his thoughts, but the memories between standing in John's too clean living room and now remained jumbled and far away, out of his reach.

The light in the kitchen flickered and it drew his attention – had it always been just a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling?

“Sherlock.”

He looked back. John was frowning now, almost looked like he might be worried, brows low over his dark blue eyes – thankfully they did not look nearly as fake as the paper flames dancing in the fireplace – and Sherlock supposed that was fitting. Just like his mind would not draw him up an imaginary 221B while he was sitting in the real one, nor would it bring him an angry, upset John when he already had a perfectly good one right across town.

He let his gaze skitter away, unable to look at the evidence of his malfunctioning mind any longer. Instead he chose to focus on what seemed most important: finding a way out of his head.

It wasn't the first time he'd gotten a little lost, wandering too deep down the dark halls of his palace, but it _was_ the first time he hadn't even been aware he was getting lost in the first place. He couldn't even remember willingly going into his palace. There were too many memories locked up in there now, like a junk closet waiting to release an avalanche as soon as you opened the door. It had been nearly a year ago when he'd shouldered the front door closed and locked it tight He could vaguely remember sneaking back inside once or twice to grab something important but...the entire place was something to be avoided now.

His fingers came up to rub at his temples and he closed his eyes. He had to find a way out. But what if what was out there was worse? That terrible idea sent out feelers, the roots silently digging down deep.

When he looked back around, John was still standing in the doorway.

“Where am I?” he asked quietly, feeling shame curling in his guts for speaking to someone who wasn't there. He just hoped the John in his head was as good a conductor of light as the real thing.

Sadly, it was not to be.

“...what?” John asked, fixing Sherlock with a very cautious gaze.

“I...” Sherlock swallowed, he should stop. _Stop talking to an empty room._ “I think I'm...lost.”

A flash of something passed through John's eyes but it was gone just as quickly. John's back straightened and his shoulder's squared but a measure of wariness remained in his expression.

“What do you mean, you think you're lost?” John took a step forward, his shoes sounding much, much too loud on the floor – exaggerated, like his mind was trying too hard to get him to believe the sound was real.

Sherlock took a step back, a chill spreading through his chest. “In my head, I'm lost in my head,” he snapped, the words slipping past his lips too fast. He took another step back just for good measure. A measure against what, he wasn't sure. _“_ I need to...to find a way _out_ but _..._ I don't know where I _am_.”

 _Was_ he in his mind palace or was this somewhere _new_?

He turned away, unable to look at an imaginary John looking so worried about him. It wasn't _real_ , John didn't _care_ , he was still too angry, it was a _lie_ , it wasn't _possible_.

He still spoke to it anyway.

“But what if I get out and it's worse? Why would I lock myself away in my head if I was perfectly fine? I'm obviously hiding from something.”

The answer suddenly bloomed like a poisonous flower, vines circling his neck like a noose and squeezing the air from his lungs.

The light in the kitchen crackled out and a frigid breeze brushed over his skin. Suddenly he found himself having to face whatever had forced him into his head in the first place and he realized he wasn't as ready to confront reality as he'd thought. Let him just stay here a while longer. Here where it was warm and he could prepare himself for whatever awaited him. Just a bit longer.

The wounds on his back stung like they'd just been forcibly reopened and he startled at the sudden pain.

“No,” he moaned, the word only just able to squeeze through his constricted throat. “ _No_...”

The taste of bile was bitter on the back of his tongue and he screwed his eyes shut, trying to override his own brain. Don't give the idea purchase, don't feed it – _delete it_.

He tried to remember the days he'd been home – however many it had been now, it was hard to tell – but they remained elusive and very, very far away. Were they fake as well? Had they just been sloppy bricks laid down along the path to get him here? Just a little extra nudge to convince himself he'd really come back to Baker Street just like he'd been longing to do for years?

Reality seemed to stutter and flicker around him, no longer able to remain a solid and compelling deception.

John was talking to him, low and careful – how strange – but only the last few words got through.

“...at Baker Street, Sherlock. You're in your sitting room.”

Sherlock rounded on him, panic clawing at the inside of his ribs. “Don't try to trick me! Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, _must_ be the truth!” he crowded into John's space, making the man stagger back, his blue eyes wide, concerned and a little alarmed. It made Sherlock's chest tighten even more. “ _Why_ , if I was sitting right here in Baker Street would my mind conjure up a duplicate?! _Why_ , if you are right across town, would I make up a new one?! I _wouldn't_ , John, which means I am somewhere _else_ – somewhere _not here_ – somewhere I want to escape badly enough that I -”

The words got stuck in his throat, choking him.

Fuck, but he _hated_ panicking; hated the way his breath shuddered and his lungs ached and his head felt like it was full of helium. He reached up to pull at his hair, tugging hard. Pain. Pain would ground him. He knew pain so well...if he focused on it maybe the walls would stop flickering, maybe he could have a bit more _time_ to get ready _,_ to calm down.

But John was suddenly in front of him – grabbing his wrists, stopping him from pulling his hair out – then backing away a few steps, his hands up as if he wanted Sherlock to know just where they were.

“Sherlock, _breathe,_ ” John's voice was shaking too, almost as hard as Sherlock's hands, and his face was pale. “This is _real_. You're in _London_ , in your flat at 221B, Baker Street,” he repeated firmly. “I'm right here. I'm right here with you.”

“Of course you're not,” Sherlock bit back, “You're not here, you couldn't possibly be. You only just...” he reached up, felt the still tender split in his lip. But then that meant...Sherlock shook his head, eyes snapping this way and that around the room. “Don't you – don't you _see_ how...”

How _dead_ the room looked? How pale it was? _Don't you see, John?_ The illusion of it all started to fail, patterned wall paper flickering into jagged stone.

“No...”

He looked down at the floor boards under his bare feet with wide eyes, his vision blurring when, instead of wood, he saw dirt.

“ _No_...”

The space around him grew dark, the furniture disappearing, fading away as if it had never been, and the sound of old, groaning water pipes over his head made him jump and he looked up, tracing the rusted metal with his eyes.

He'd been right, he thought, as he swallowed around the dry heave pushing up his throat and slid down the cold, rough wall.

He'd never left that fucking cell. He was still in Serbia.

Settling back against the stone, Sherlock contemplated the feeling of lead filling his chest with a detached sort of interest. Never before had he thought he would understand how someone could want to die, but, despite what he vaguely remembered saying to Lestrade, in that moment he knew that if there had been a gun in his hand, he'd have buried a bullet in his own brain without flinching.

 


	4. Paper Flames

A knife cut into this side, through the thin barrier of his skin, and scraped along his fifth rib bone.

Sherlock grit his teeth, grunting around the sharp, hot pain instead of screaming like he wanted. When his captor snarled something at him, he refused to answer, earning him a twist of the knife and he cried out, his nerve endings flaring and his gut twisting. The knife was withdrawn and he curled in on himself as best he could, given he was too tired to move. He managed to pull his knees towards his torso and folded his arms between his chest and the dirt floor, shivering as the frigid Serbian winter air caressed his naked skin cruelly. Though at least when he was this cold, the pain wasn't as bad. He couldn't feel his fingers and toes and wondered absently if he might have frost bite.

He didn't dare move, unwilling to let go of the small amount of heat he'd managed to store between his arms and chest.

A sudden, violent kick to his head sent him slamming into unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

When he came to again, the first thing he noticed was that he was wonderfully, blessedly _warm_ and the pain from his injuries was nothing but a dull ache in his memory. Though whatever he was laying on was incredibly hard and uncomfortable.

He cautiously opened his eyes and found himself staring across his own living room at a fire burning merrily in the grate.

He was back in his sitting room. The one his mind had so perfectly constructed for him to hide in. He felt so warm that it was difficult to imaging he was likely succumbing to frostbite at that very moment. He couldn't find the energy to care. Maybe if he was lucky, his captors would kill him before this illusion dissolved again.

Movement off to his right made Sherlock flinch hard out of reflex alone, and his knees twitched closer to his chest on instinct, palms flat against the floor in case he needed to push himself up quickly. Though he very much doubted he'd be doing anything quickly for a while. He felt sluggish, like he was trying to move through molasses and there was something dark clawing at the back of his mind. Something he couldn't pin down long enough to identify.

It was only John, slowly kneeling to the floor a few feet in front of him, his blue eyes grave and sad. Sherlock watched the man closely, almost expecting to see the edges of his body flicker and sputter like a faulty hologram. But John remained a solid presence; a perfect reconstruction.

Why was it even still here, this make-believe John? It hurt worse than not having him at all.

When the apparition raised a hand to scrub at it's face, Sherlock flinched again, pushing back against the wall behind him, and it drew John's attention.

“It's alright, Sherlock,” John told him softly, his voice tight with an emotion Sherlock failed to identify. “You're alright. You're _safe_ , ok?”

Sherlock very much doubted that. He wiggled his toes, trying to see if he could feel the icy bite of the Serbian winter through the veil of his mind. But no. He was still so wonderfully warm and his gaze slid off John and his comforting, familiar green jumper to stare at the fire, wishing he were closer to it.

He was so very tired and the hard floor boards under him suddenly felt comfortable enough to fall asleep on. So he closed his eyes, wedging his arms under his chest again, quite ready to be unconscious once more.

“Sherlock...”

He peeled his eyes open but was unable to muster the energy to glare at John.

“Sherlock, is it alright if I come closer?” John asked him gently, slowly, like he was a child.

It sent a mild spike of irritation through him and Sherlock scowled. John took it the wrong way – or the right way, considering – and held his hands up in a gesture of peace.

“I only want to check your vitals, you...” John hesitated, seemingly only just thinking of something, and his voice turned inquisitive and wary. “Do you know where you are now?”

Sherlock's scowl deepened. He'd be dammed if he was going to let his own mind's creation coddle him with such blatant condescending questions, but then John's face started to fall when he didn't answer and it was...upsetting.

“Yes,” he snapped, his voice sounding hoarse.

John nodded but he still looked unconvinced, his hands resting on his thighs now. “Can you tell me, please?”

“Mind palace.” Why was his throat so itchy?

It seemed he'd given John the wrong answer because his shoulders slumped a little, even though he squared them again right after. Ever the soldier. Ever trying to let nothing show, but when John's hand came up to rub over his lips, it was shaking terribly.

John took a deep breath. “Ok. That's ok.” It was hard to tell if he was talking to Sherlock or to himself. “We'll...we can worry about that...later...” John cleared his throat, ran the tips of his fingers over his mouth. “Will you let me check your vitals?”

Sherlock stared and John seemed to decide that was a 'yes' and shuffled over to him on his knees, slowly, his blue eyes cautious like he thought Sherlock was a cornered animal practically frothing at the mouth. It was annoying, so Sherlock decided to watch the fire again, staring blankly into the dancing flames.

It was strange. He _felt_ strange. Because, he realized, he actually felt nothing at all and he didn't want to _do_ anything but lie here on the floor and watch the fireplace. He remained still when he felt John's trembling fingers on his neck, counting the beats of his heart, which felt surprisingly steady in his chest. Then John's hand was pressing down between his shoulder blades and he was asking Sherlock to take a deep breath. He obliged, because why shouldn't he? What did it matter anyway?

John's hand settled on his forehead then and Sherlock had to close his eyes because it felt too real, more than anything he could recently remember, and that just wasn't _fair_.

He quickly reached up and pushed John's arm away and the doctor backed off immediately, his hands held up again.

“Ok,” John assuaged, swallowing thickly, “It's alright. You...you're a bit cold.”

He didn't feel cold. Though he wouldn't be unhappy if he suddenly found himself closer to the fire.

“Why don't you let me help you to bed. When was the last time you slept?” John asked him softly, hands falling to rest on his thighs again.

Sherlock shrugged. There was no way of knowing that. His memory was too jumbled. Too unreliable.

His room seemed very far away. It might as well have been on the other side of London for all Sherlock had the energy to get up and walk to it.

“The sofa, then?” John encouraged. “Come on, you can't stay on the floor.”

He bloody well _could_ stay on the floor if he wanted, but John was already reaching for him and Sherlock jerked away, reluctantly unfolded himself, and struggled to his feet. It took a bit longer than it should have – apparently his muscles were shaking quite badly, he hadn't noticed until he tried to use them – but eventually he managed. He skirted around the helpful hand the doctor extended, refusing to lean on him lest he find himself passing right through the man and hitting the floor again. Instead, the doctor hovered close by the whole way over to the sofa and now that he was moving, Sherlock felt the chill John had been talking about. He glanced over his shoulder at the fireplace, now even farther away than it had been. At least the flames looked like flames again, instead of dancing paper cutouts.

“You want to be by the fire?” John asked, following his line of sight.

The doctor was already dragging the sofa across the room before Sherlock could answer and a moment later he was sinking down into the leather, close enough to the fireplace now that he could feel the heat on his skin.

The chairs had been pushed aside to make room and John fussed over him, guiding him to lie down and then disappearing for a moment before returning with a heap of musty blankets from the linen closet down the hall, which he promptly and efficiently stacked on top of Sherlock.

Once he was done, Sherlock felt, admittedly, better. He felt warm again, in a _real_ way, and the snugness and weight of the cocoon of blankets around him was comforting in a way he never would have guessed. He snuggled down into the mass of fabrics, pulling his knees to his chest.

Minutes or hours later, well after his eyes had closed and he was nearing the edge of sleep, Sherlock felt gentle – so gentle – fingers in his hair.

A chill swept through him, goosebumps exploding like fireworks across his entire body, and he shivered, imagining he could feel the icy teeth of the Serbian winter scraping over his flesh.

The fingers in his hair retreated and he shuffled deeper into the pile of blankets, deciding it wouldn't hurt to hold on to this reality a little longer. Nothing but misery waited for him outside the thin walls of his head. Maybe he could strengthen those walls. Maybe he could stay here, in 221B, _with John_ , forever. Until his captors cut his throat – which they inevitably would, what good was a catatonic prisoner? – at which point he'd be dead and none of this would matter anyway. Was indulging in this lovely little fantasy world such a bad thing? At least his last few days would be somewhat comfortable.

He opened his eyes, staring miserably over the edge of the blankets pulled up to his nose, and watched the fire. It still looked real, unlike when his mind had wavered and the flames had turned to colored paper. Maybe his walls were already stronger. Maybe it had just been something _outside_ that had momentarily jarred him badly enough to shake the foundations of his palace.

Either way, it was quiet and calm and warm now and that was all Sherlock wanted. He sighed, nuzzling into the soft blankets and closing his eyes again. Well, that wasn't _all_ he wanted. He wanted John – he always wanted John – and he wondered if he could be as content with this illusion of him as he would be with the real thing.

The answer was _no_. Of course it was. Nothing, not even Sherlock's superior mind, could conjure up anything that was better than the real John. Impossible. Absurd.

But it would have to do.

When he managed to work up the interest to open his eyes again the fire had burned a bit lower, coals glowing hotly in the dim room, and John had appeared in his chair. When their eyes met, John's lips twitched like he wanted to smile but couldn't quite manage it and his gaze was heavy and sad as he stared at Sherlock somewhat absently – like he was buried in his head just as deeply as Sherlock was.

He became aware that he was inexplicably thirsty and he winced when he swallowed around the dryness in his throat. Well, at least he wasn't swallowing around blood, he supposed. Could be worse, don't count your blessings, and all that.

Still, he pulled a breath through his nose and refused to move, staring petulantly at the fire because what was the point of getting up and walking all the way to the kitchen and drinking water to sooth his throat if it wasn't real?

With the sound of his deep breath, Sherlock could practically feel John's attention refocusing, his blue eyes cutting sharp through the air between them.

When John stood and headed towards the kitchen, Sherlock refrained from watching him, keeping his eyes on the burning coals in the grate. He would just lay here until he died, that was all he wanted to do, childish as it may sound.

But when John held a cold glass of water in front of his face, it was difficult to ignore.

His tongue darted out to wet his lips, his throat itching.

“I know you're thirsty,” said John, his voice low, “Will you drink it, please?”

And of course he would _now_ because apparently he was incapable of refusing even a make-believe John. Pathetic. He sat up with great effort, at least managing to parry John's soft, patient gaze with a weak glare before reaching up and slipping his fingers around the cool glass.

So real. It felt _so_ real, so solid, under his fingers. There was condensation making the glass slippery and when he brought it to his lips, the water was like glacier runoff, washing over his tongue and down his parched throat like a flash flood in a desert.

He gulped the water down and in two seconds it was nearly gone, but John's hand covered his and the doctor pried the glass out of his fingers before he could finish it all.

“Easy, Sherlock or you'll make yourself sick.”

He swallowed the water left in his mouth and then hauled a breath into his lungs, wishing he had another glass already. Though a few seconds later his stomach caught up with his nervous system and he grimaced, feeling uncomfortably full.

John moved out of sight again and Sherlock heard the soft thunk of the glass being set down and then John was crouching in front of him, looking up with a doctor's scrutiny and a friend's concern.

“How are you feeling now?”

Sherlock blinked, pressing his lips together in an effort not to snap out an answer, still very torn between refusing to fall into his own mind games or to just say ' _fuck it_ ' and take what little comfort he could.

“ _Sherlock_.”

His gaze had drifted so he looked back to John, who was reaching for him like he meant to touch the side of Sherlock's face.

He jerked away with a clipped, “ _Don't_.” and John's hand froze, dropped to the blankets that were still bunched around the detective's legs, and squeezed his thigh instead.

“Alright...It's alright,” John soothed, his voice wavering. Sherlock was distracted by the strength of his grip. “You're safe here.”

“'Course I am,” he mumbled quickly. His mind had utterly betrayed him but in so doing had given him a place to... _get away_ from whatever his captors were undoubtedly doing to him.

If possible, John's eyes only seemed to grow sadder, deep lines creasing the skin all around them, and the doctor stood, settling carefully back into his chair with deliberate movements.

“I called Mycroft.”

The admission startled him and Sherlock looked over with wide eyes. A small space like 221B and one person wasn't much, but surely bringing his brother into it was getting a bit...elaborate, even for _his_ mind to maintain.

He said nothing and one of John's eyebrows arched.

“Thought for sure that would get a rise out of you.” As soon as he was done speaking, John's eyes slid shut and he sighed through his nose in that way he did when he was trying to reign something in, and he rubbed two fingers across his brow.

“Anyway, he's out of town, apparently,” John continued at length.

 _Ah_ , thought Sherlock, _there is the loophole_. Mycroft wouldn't be materializing in his sitting room after all. That was more of a relief then it probably should be.

“I have to go,” John was talking again. “Grab a change of clothes and a few things. So I'll be gone for a bit.”

His gaze was heavy again. Sherlock felt his eyes narrow, trying to resist the urge to deduce his own mind sitting across from him. But John made no move to leave, still just sitting there, staring like he always accused Sherlock of doing and Sherlock found himself inexplicably annoyed with the entire situation.

“I managed two years being hunted without you, John,” he said, using his most cutting tone, the one that had made Anderson cry once. “I can go a bit longer.”

John went pale and swallowed convulsively as he finally dropped his gaze.

“Right.”

John stood, his hand clenching and unclenching at his side as he strode to the door.

“Right, I'll be back...as soon as I can. Within the hour.” He glanced over his shoulder and Sherlock only saw it because he was looking, scrutinizing the tense set of the doctor's shoulders.  "Call me if..."

John swallowed again and left the sentence unfinished. He left, walking down the stairs, through the front door and presumably into a vast nothingness, ceasing to exist instantly, and Sherlock was left to stare into the fire and hope the flames wouldn't turn to paper again.

 


	5. The Confession

Time passed – it was impossible to say how much – and the edges of Sherlock's reality had started to fray again, just little wisps sort of breaking away in the back of his consciousness, so vague he barely noticed them, but unsettling all the same because he _did_ notice. It was hard not to pull at them, like a scab, he itched to peel back the edges of those threads and peek under for no reason he could firmly pin down.

In need of a distraction, he managed to pull himself off the couch and stumble to the bathroom.

He showered, kept the water icy cold, and felt the frayed bits around the borders of his consciousness knit back together. Though, he couldn't look to long at the water droplets on the clean wall tiles because they started to look too much like glass beads or dried glue and he had to swipe his hand across them just to make sure they were still liquid.

When he looked in the mirror his jaw was sharp and stubbled and he picked up the razor on the little shelf over the sink, deciding his hands weren't shaking so bad that he shouldn't make an attempt to shave.

He managed it with only a nick or two and a drop of blood fell from his face onto his arm, presenting a solution to a problem he still wasn't sure was actually a problem. He spent longer than was probably normal staring at the trickle of red on his white skin, watching it seep into the microscopic grooves like spilled ink.

If he killed himself _here –_ if he sliced himself open – would this illusion come spilling out like the insides of a gutted pig? Would everything go black and he'd wake up in his cell in Serbia? It seemed likely. With his mind in a slimy puddle on the ground, he'd be left with no choice but to process reality.

He filed the option away in case a need arose for it.

Back in the sitting room, he threw the last two logs onto the fire and reclaimed his spot on the sofa.

It was dark outside now – or maybe it was dark outside _still_ – and the flames had grown high in the grate, licking at the belly of stones lining the inside of the fireplace, when John came back through the door.

He had an overnight bag in his hand and had changed clothes, now wearing jeans and the same cream colored jumper that Sherlock had seen on him a hundred times before. It always did a good job of softening John's edges, of smoothing down the soldier in him and leaving something warmer, something Sherlock longed to wrap his arms around and squeeze. He thought it was a bit like wrapping a brick in cotton – or, in this case, wool – and a fondness so strong swept through him at the sight of his blogger that Sherlock had to look away, back into the flames, because having John here, like this – here but not here – was such a wonderful torment that he couldn't decide if it hurt or helped.

John lingered in the doorway and then climbed the stairs to his old room, the dull _thump thump thump_ sounding like a dying heartbeat in Sherlock's ears.

John was around for a long time after that. He hovered nearby, always just at the edge of Sherlock's vision, like a shadow in a dark room that you swore bore resemblance to something familiar, until you turned your head to look and it vanished. The sky outside grew light and then dark again and still John remained.

He'd set things on the little table beside the sofa from time to time – a sandwich, a cup of tea, glass after glass of water – he would talk too, about nothing mostly, everyday trifles. What Mrs. Hudson was doing, frustrations Lestrade was facing at the yard, among other things.

Sherlock just listened, allowed the comfort of John's voice to sink in to him. At first it had done wonders to sooth. For two years he'd longed to hear John's voice, to hear him prattle on about things that had nothing to do with anything. Like he used to. Like he was now. It made him feel warm inside, where the heat from the fireplace could not reach. So he listened as he watched the fire and John talked with all his usual enthusiasm and hand waving. But never about anything important, never about anything they probably _should_ talk about, and it was this that poisoned the comfort Sherlock felt.

Because John wouldn't talk forever. Eventually Sherlock's mind would run out of things for him to say, or Sherlock would die, and they'll not have said anything about the _one thing_ that needed talking about.

He rolled his head against the back of the sofa, looking away from the fire for the first time in what felt like years, to look at John.

“...and I told him if it bothers him so damn much to just stop letting her come to the family dinners,” John was saying. There was a desperate edge to his voice and the huff of laughter sounded forced – _fake_ – as it whistled past his teeth where he was chewing his thumbnail distractedly. “But of course he thinks leaving her out will just create another problem altogether.”

John cleared his throat, sounding like he was trying to dislodge something that wasn't entirely physical, and looked up, doing a double take when he saw Sherlock staring at him.

John blinked quickly several times. “Hello.”

Words stuck in Sherlock's throat. He shouldn't be talking to him, shouldn't be encouraging his mind to plant those sensible shoes even more firmly on the ground, but he threw out the last shred of his logic and dignity because he'd been ignoring John for what felt like half his life now and John was still here anyway, talking away while Sherlock sat on this fucking sofa in the safety of his mind. He had long since stopped listening to the actual words John spoke, anyway, so what did it matter if he spoke back to him or not?

What it boiled down to was he was going to die here in his mind palace with nothing but this John for company and if he wasn't going to be given the chance to tell the real John, then the next best thing would be to tell this one. It wouldn't be the same, but it might help ease the crushing weight of guilt constantly trying to squeeze the air from his lungs.

He licked his lips, vision blurring as he forced himself to say the words. It felt like he had to reach down his throat and grab them, like he was trying to induce vomiting.

“You _must_...you _must know_ how sorry I am,” he managed. “I _need_ you to know how sorry I am...John,” he winced when he said the name, feeling like he was giving in to something dangerous. “What I did -” he swallowed thickly, “I could think of nothing else to save you. You and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. It all happened so quickly and Moriarty had so many people already in place, please, you must understand that it was all I could do with the time that was given to me.”

It was hard to read John's face, as everything was blurred with the tears pooling in his eyes. But the doctor was sitting very still, like a frozen video Sherlock's mind had paused to buffer. It made sense, because speaking these things aloud for the first time made him feel like he was going to crumble under the strain and his brain could only process so much at one time.

But John needed to hear this and, what was more, _Sherlock_ needed him to hear it.

And these words had been rotting on his tongue for two years now.

He willed his voice to be steady, but it defied him, shaking under the weight of everything he had left to say. “After, once the snipers had been delt with, I had to make _sure_ because Moriarty's network was huge, it was _massive_ , John. It took me two entire years – I had to go everywhere, I didn't have time to _stop_. Tokyo, Minsk, Washington, Marrakesh, Karachi, Jaipur, I think...I think I was in Taiwan at one point, Antananarivo – _Madagascar_ , John! Huge, his web was...inexplicably...”

Sherlock screwed his eyes shut and turned his head to look at the ceiling, let his tears fall. There was too much to say and it was becoming difficult to pick out just the most important bits to explain to John, because to him, every second was fueled by adrenaline and terror and rage. Every moment had seemed just as important – just as devastating – as the one before it.

“I've killed _so many people_ ,” he whispered. His voice shook so badly he nearly couldn't form the words and more tears carved cool tracks down his face. “I took _dozens_ of lives so that I could save those of my three only friends.” He curled his arms around his stomach and drew his knees to his chest while a sob escaped his throat – made his bones shake – before he managed to swallow the rest back down.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to keep his voice steady enough for John to understand what he was saying. Trying to ignore the shards guilt carving a hole in his chest. “They finally caught me in Serbia. I'd been running for days and I was _so_ tired and it was so _cold_ , John, I didn't know it could be that cold. I couldn't run anymore – I couldn't, I tried but I kept falling – and that -” he stopped short, nearly choking on words that felt like rocks in his throat. But he had to say this or he'd die even more crazy than he was already.

He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, let it out slowly.

“And that's where I start to get lost. Nothing after that seems real. I think I remember two months of it, at least. Two months of torture and questions and they never let me s-sleep.” He chewed on his lips, staring off blankly at the wall, feeling the wetness on his face. “One of them used an iron pipe that he'd leave out in the snow for hours.” He grimaced, remembering how the frigid metal would crush his muscle and fuse with his skin, ripping away layers with every blow. But that was probably one of the less important things for John to understand. “I don't know anymore John...sometimes this all melts away and I'm still there. I think...I think I never left. I'm still there and my mind has betrayed me, it's brought me here, built a path all the way to my front door so that I could escape a different way.”

For a moment it was quiet between them and Sherlock felt his heart rate calm and a numbness settled deep inside him. He'd said the important things, he was sure he had. And at least he'd admitted out loud that he was going mad. Mad people don't know they're mad, right? Maybe that meant he had a small chance of...of something.

He couldn't decide if he felt better now or not. He decided to keep talking, to see if it helped him decide.

“I don't think I mind anymore, though. I think...I think I'll just stay here until they kill me. It's warmer here,” he sighed, feeling utterly exhausted even though he hadn't moved in ages.

Despite the hollow feeling in his chest, tears welled in his eyes and spilled over again, though his expression remained blank.

“I am sorry, John. Please, forgive me.”

The crackle of the fire hinted that John might not be there when he managed to look. But when he eventually rolled his head back to check, John was still there, sitting in his chair with one hand over his eyes and the other balled into a white knuckled fist on the armrest.

After a few long moments, John scrubbed a hand down his face, sniffed, cleared his throat, stared into the fire with red eyes and an utterly shattered expression.

“You -” John tried, but then grunted like he'd been punched in the sternum and closed his eyes, curling his fingers against his mouth for a moment. But he seemed incapable of continuing after that.

Apparently his mind couldn't even properly imagine what John's reaction might be to such a messy, pathetic, tear stained confession.

The sofa suddenly dipped next to him when John sat down and then John was grabbing his hand, lacing their fingers together and tugging at his shirt until Sherlock gave in and sunk into his side, leaned his head on the man's jumper-soft shoulder.

He was still crying, could feel the tears sliding down his face, sticky and unpleasant, but didn't know how to stop them – was quite sure it didn't matter.

John's arm wrapped strongly around his shoulders and his hand was shaking where it griped him tightly.

“Sleep, Sherlock,” John whispered, voice trembling thickly. His fingers tightened in Sherlock's and he spoke the next words into the detective's soft hair. “It's alright now. Please, sleep, I'll watch over you. _Sleep_ , just sleep, _please_...”

 


	6. Colors On Concrete

Waking within your own bubble of consciousness was much the same as waking _from_ it, Sherlock found.

He must have slept, because the last thing he remembered was John begging him to and, whatever John asked of Sherlock, he usually got. At least here.

He was in his bed, alone, and the fact that he wasn't on the couch in front of the eternally burning fireplace was a bit jarring – more so than the fact that he didn't remember how he'd gotten to his bed in the first place. He thought of John, pulling him close, hugging so tight it was as if the man thought Sherlock might float away if he didn't hold him down. John had pleaded, begged him to sleep with words that shook as they tumbled from his lips. But that was all he remembered. Though, gaps in his memory were common enough now that he couldn't bother feeling too concerned about it.

He blinked up at the ceiling, light streaming through his window and carving harsh, sharp edged shadows into the room.

It wasn't as warm in here as it was in the sitting room. This room felt dull, like the fireplace was the heart of this breathing mirage, and the further he moved from it the less alive the illusion felt. He stared at the thin curtains covering his window, wondering what he'd see if he pulled them back. He could only imagine it would be a vast expanse of whiteness; even a mind as capable as his could not conjure up something the size of London, and certainly not just to make himself feel better.

John suddenly walked through the doorway like he'd somehow managed to connect Sherlock's state of consciousness to an alarm system.

“Good morning,” John said gently, his eyes much more careful and focused than his soft tone would suggest.

“Is it?” Was it good? Was it morning? He couldn't tell and he didn't think time existed in his head. He felt like he'd been inside 221B for his entire life at this point.

One corner of John's mouth turned up sadly. “How are you feeling? Will you come have something to eat?”

Sherlock's insides twisted. No. He wouldn't go that far down the rabbit hole. God only knew what he might actually be eating in the real world if he did. He'd read that one tended to mimic those sorts of actions while they imagined doing them and he knew there wasn't anything he wanted even close to his mouth in that cell.

As for how he was feeling, well, that just wasn't something he was willing to investigate. He let it hang in the distance – that vaguely unsettling feeling that everything about him was all wrong, all mixed up. He didn't want to look at it because then he'd have to think about trying to fix it and that was a more daunting task than a five thousand piece jigsaw puzzle of Anderson's face. If he didn't look at the mess he was in then he could pretend it didn't exist.

“Have I gone mad?” he asked John curiously, quite sincere.

John swallowed. Looked away. Looked back with a controlled expression. Always so controlled.

“No, you haven't gone mad -”

“That's not how it feels.”

John's tongue darted out between the press of his lips. “You've not gone mad, Sherlock,” he repeated firmly. “You've just gotten a little confused. A little lo -”

“Lost. You see, I told you I was lost, didn't I? I told you and you didn't believe me,” he stated, not unkindly. He meant nothing by it, only that he wished to establish that he had, in fact, known he was lost this entire time. And he didn't need his own mind's creation telling him that now like it was trying to do him a favor or impart some grand secret.

He rolled off his bed, struggling to find his balance when the room tilted dangerously. He almost stumbled into his wardrobe but managed to right himself before John could intervene. His muscles didn't seem to want to listen to him now. He felt like he'd been cut open and filled with sand and lifting his hand to grab the little knob on the wardrobe door felt like a year long ordeal.

He wrenched the door open.

“Bloody useless hallucination you turned out to be,” he grumbled, letting his eyes flick briefly to where John still stood just to the side of him. What did the man think, that he was going to toppled over any minute? Like a badly stacked pile of dominoes? He supposed it was possible, he did feel a little uncoordinated at the moment.

Sherlock grabbed the closest folded thing that felt clean and ended up with a pair of dark wash jeans in his hands. He stared down at them bemusedly. When had his subconscious decided it liked jeans?

It didn't matter, if he was going to submit to this hellishly perfect reality – brief trips to Serbian torture chambers aside – then he wasn't going to do it half-arsed and he _felt_ cold in this flimsy t-shirt, so he was going to put on a damn sweater even though that probably made him that much crazier. He blindly reached into the wardrobe again and came away with a long sleeve, cream colored shirt.

“Dreadful.” He tossed it over his shoulder, reached in again, came away with a purple sweater. That'd do.

“What are you...doing?”

John's voice faltered behind him when he pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it on the bed and, for a few moments, he struggled to figure out which way was front and back on the sweater. The fabric started to slip together and twisted itself up like some kind of mobius strip. It wasn't behaving normally, Sherlock was sure, and he paused to blink hard a view times, hoping that might make the laws of physics behave again.

Finally, he got it sorted and had just managed to get his head through the neck hole when John's hands – John's rough, warm, _strong_ hands – were brushing over the bare, damaged skin on his back.

The sudden feel of blood warmed skin on his shocked him like a cattle prod and he spun, staggering back into the dresser with the sweater around his neck like a scarf. Goosebumps blossomed across his body, catching on his pajama bottoms and the sweater around his neck, making them feel like sandpaper grating against his flesh with every tiny shift.

John's hands were gone now, held up in that familiar gesture of peace while Sherlock stared wide-eyed with phantom fingers skittering up his spine like water on a hot plate, leaving him a little breathless when it had his brain short circuiting.

“That...that...” he stuttered, blinking owlishly, his mouth open a little. The thought occurred to him that he probably looked stupid. But there were more important things to notice, like how John's blue eyes looked a bit wet. “That...”

Nope, the words weren't going to come, but not being able to articulate it didn't change that fact that John's touch had felt incredibly... _real_. _Too_ real. Unfairly real.

John hands had been warm and a little clammy, a little shaky. They'd held weight, had pressed into the marred and damaged skin on his back – not at all like he thought the touch of a phantom creation of his mind would feel like – and it had felt like dumping paint on concrete, color and warmth dripping from under John's palms and sinking into Sherlock's cold, grey flesh.

John's eyes were raking down his front now, taking in every little nick and imperfection that had been carved, sliced, burned into him by the hands of his captors. He looked incredibly distressed, his hand shaking when it came up to rub at his mouth. Sherlock wished he would blink.

If just a brief touch could feel so powerful, Sherlock wouldn't mind submitting to this mind trick at all. He could literally die somewhat happy, pretending that this was real, as long as he had John to help him believe it. As long as he could have John's vibrancy surrounding him at all times. He inched forward a step, already craving the warm colors of John's touch again.

“Sherlock...” John choked helplessly, gesturing with one hand to the state of the detective's torso and the movement looked helpless, overwhelmed, like he didn't know what to address first.

But they were all just scabs and scars here. There were no open wounds in a dreamland. No dirt smearing into his insides as he writhed on a dirty floor.

Though for a moment Sherlock was sure he felt the gritty sting of mud in the gaping whip marks on his back and he flinched, shifting his shoulders, but the pain was already gone.

He released a shaky sigh, wondering if his captors were being particularly vicious at the moment. Had the wardrobe just flickered? He eyed it warily, tried to think of John, of his hands, of his touch. Tried to hold on to the memory of the life they'd bled in to him.

The edges of the wardrobe shifted, splicing for a moment like a cut up picture, mocking his efforts to keep it whole.

“Sherlock, we need to talk about a few things.” John was telling him from behind a glass wall.

When he looked back, John's blue eyes were staring into his, and it was somehow heavier than the sand in his bones.

He hastily pulled the sweater the rest of the way on and John's eyes tracked the movement, lingering over the areas where he now knew the worst injuries to be. His hands were both clenched in tight fists but it did nothing to hide their trembling.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock noticed the wardrobe was gone and, when he looked, in it's place was a rusted metal table with gore covered instruments arranged in a precise line.

He did a double take, blinked, and it was gone, the wardrobe sitting innocently in it's proper place. But the damage was done and the sight of that dreaded table – the same one his captors had wheeled into his cell every day – had stolen the breath from his lungs and flash frozen the tentative acceptance of this being something he could deal with.

John had wanted to talk about something he said, and Sherlock latched on to that, trying to focus on it instead of the quietly shifting wardrobe.

“What do we need to talk about?” he asked carefully, wishing John would just start talking about anything.

His voice had kept Serbia away for the entire time Sherlock had spent on the sofa in front of the fire and now his heart was beating a little too fast and he _needed_ John's solidity again while he tried to hold tightly to the unraveling threads of his self imposed reality.

But even as he moved forward it was all falling apart faster than he could put it back together. Just behind John, through the open door where he should be able to see the edge of the kitchen table and the hall leading to the sitting room, there was a narrow brick corridor, lit by a single construction light strung up by it's power chord, and frozen water, having dripped down the rough bricks and solidified like glass beads, dotted the walls.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the nothingness behind his eyelids while his heart tapped frantically against his ribs, as if to get his attention.

“Sherlock?”

So cautious. So worried.

A chill crept over him and Sherlock refused to open his eyes, worried he'd see his breath coming in fast clouds of frozen air.

“Sherlock, remember where you are,” John told him firmly. “You're in 221B, with me, in London.”

Sherlock kept his eyes closed with great effort, desperate to see John's face again, desperate to confirm that he still looked worried, that he still looked like he cared – just in case it was the last time he got to. Just in case this little doll house of his was about to be burned to the ground.

But he was too scared of what he might see lurking behind the doctor. John didn't belong in a place like that. He was too pure and kind to be seen standing in the dirt and evilness of those dark halls and cramped, filthy cells.

It felt like space was stretching between them and Sherlock swallowed around the lump of terror pushing up his throat at the thought of having to be alone with the pain again. He didn't want to go back. He didn't want to look up and see rusty frozen water pipes while he focused his everything on listening for footsteps outside the heavy iron door.

“If – if I don't come back,” he panted, his voice trembling. “Just...please remember what I said -” That didn't make sense, of course. As soon as Sherlock was gone, John would be gone too.

“You _will_ come back, Sherlock!” John said urgently, strong hands suddenly circling around Sherlock's biceps and squeezing hard enough to bruise. “You're not _going_ anywhere. You are in 221B, with _me_ , in _London_. You're having a _flashback_.”

A convincing argument, made more difficult to ignore by how perfectly his mind had replicated John's frightened tone of voice. Of course it would keep using John against him. John was his biggest weakness. He wanted to please John, to make him happy, to believe everything he said, and he _knew_ it.

But when John's hands moved to his shoulders, one sliding up the side of his neck, they beckoned to him, tossing out an emotional life line and Sherlock desperately grappled for it even as he tried to shrug John off, because as much as his heart wanted to grab on and never let go he knew it was foolish to take comfort from someone who was about to disappear, it would only hurt that much more.

But vibrancy was seeping out from under John's hands and the man refused to let him go, following him to the floor when the sound of a power drill spooling up off to his right made Sherlock flinch and hit the ground with the instinct to curl into a ball.

“It's not real, Sherlock,” John was insiting, wrapping his arms around the detective's thin shoulders. “It's not real, you're safe and I'm _right here_ _with you_...”

Sherlock knew opening his eyes was a mistake as soon as he did it. He should have known better.

He was in the cell, as real and frigid as the reaper looming over him waiting to snatch his soul. John's tight hold dissolved like wet paper, leaving ice in it's place and Sherlock curled in on himself, stared at the metal door that had replaced the clean, white one in his bedroom, and silently begged his mind to take him back to John before his captors came for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a lot of people keep begging me to make this longer and I have kept adding chapters. This was originally meant to be three chapters max but, as things tend to do, it got away from me.
> 
> There should be one more chapter after this, possibly two - but I stress 'possibly' because I'm really not sure. Also, at this point I'm beginning to feel like I'm losing my grip on Sherlock's mental state and I keep thinking of what it feels like to dissociate and, while the descriptions make perfect sense to me, I feel like they're starting to get a little too strange or something, I dunno...let me know if this chapter is alright because I've been staring at it for longer than is probably healthy and could think of nothing else to manipulate to make it more understandable.


	7. It All Comes Tumbling Down

Laughter as cruel and twisted as rusted barbed wire snaked into his ear like a drain hook, catching on his brain and threatening to rip a chunk out. He flinched away, but roughened hands, slippery with his blood, grabbed at him, held him down, kept him still, and a thick finger plunged into the puncture wound in his thigh.

It wriggled against the torn muscle inside his leg while he screamed and thrashed, his face pressed to the dirt, fighting against his captors' hold. But he'd been fighting for too long without rest, and he was so tired now that his efforts to escape were visceral and base in a very obvious way. He knew he wouldn't get away, knew that fighting this hard all the time would only exhaust him further and kill him faster. But his brain – the primitive part that was all chemicals and urgently firing neurons – refused to let him stay still. It made him writhe and snarl and dig his fingernails and teeth into any flesh that got close enough. Even though he knew it would do nothing but enrage his tormentors.

They must have grown tired of his screaming because a savage blow to his head knocked him out cold.

 

* * *

 

His return to consciousness was just as abrupt and jarring as his departure and he came to with a shout and a violent twist to try and dislodge the hands he could still feel grabbing at him. He imagined he could practically _feel_ his brain pouring glutamate over his hypothalamus and in response, the intense rush of adrenaline injected into his blood left him feeling light headed and stronger than he knew he was.

It was a familiar feeling for him, though, almost a comfort in it's predictability, and in this, at least, he knew just what to expect. The dizziness and jitters, the helium inside his skull and the tingle in his fingertips and legs. He scarcely remembered what it felt like to be _without_ the high of adrenaline coursing through him.

He managed to resist the urge to claw at the hands as they slipped away from him – his instincts telling him to just _get away_ – but when a flesh colored blur reached for him again he snapped his teeth with a sound that was more animal then human, scrambling across the floor until his back hit something solid, where he pulled all his limbs in close and closed his eyes, feeling the room tilt.

He wanted to jump up and run, run, _run_ and his body was pumping him full of everything he needed to do just that. He wanted to bite and claw and scream and _fight –_

But already there was a softness creeping into the jagged edges of his savage thoughts, smoothing them down like a gentle hand to an agitated dog.

He realized all at once, while the hissing, snarling animal was still tugging at his limbs, urging him to leap forward and _rip_ at something, that it was John's voice that was doing to soothing.

And wasn't it always?

The animal quieted down and Sherlock felt like he could breathe again, though not well, judging by how hard his lungs were working.

' _John...listen to John. John always knows what to do,_ ' he told himself, but it was difficult when he heard to sound of something shuffling a bit closer and that animal reared it's head again.

He threaded his fingers into his hair, pulling hard and searching for John's voice through the roar between his ears.

“...bedroom...221B...safe... _safe_...”

He could feel the floorboards through his thin pants now and only just noticed that the chill was gone from the air. It was warm and humid.

Breathing became a little easier.

John's voice was whispering soft platitudes and encouragement and for once Sherlock couldn't manage to feel irritated about being coddled. Let John coddle him, he would use whatever worked to push back the savageness that lingered, rushing forward whenever John shifted, hissing in his ear, telling him to _go for the throat_ , before it slipped back an instant later into the shadows of his mind.

But it was still there, lurking like a threat, telling him it was going to take over soon if Sherlock failed to find a way to safety. ' _I'll show them,'_  it purred dangerously, ' _Just let me and I'll show them. I'll turn them inside out. I'll string them up by their guts. Just let me. Just let me.'_

The hard floorboards were pressing through the thin barrier of his flesh and making his bones ache. He felt sick and very tired but those fine threads of his mind were finally mending themselves, slowly weaving back together yet again. He hoped they were stronger for it.

They knit closed over the animal's shadowed face and only when it's mad eyes, glinting with murderous want, were gone did Sherlock finally open his own.

His room was back to normal, save for the rusted iron door where a painted white one should have been, and he blinked a few times, trying to will it back to normal. It held fast.

Not stronger, then.

He closed his eyes again when the door flickered.

“You with me?” John asked him.

“The door wont go back,” Sherlock complained listlessly. He felt like he'd been hollowed out with an ice cream scoop.

John glanced at the door, his tongue darting out between the press of his lips before his attention returned to Sherlock. “Is it alright if I come closer?”

Sherlock peeled his eyes open again, saw John looking at him from where he was crouched on the floor a few feet away. He looked sadder, if that was possible, than when Sherlock had tumbled back into his cell. His normally square shoulders were rounded with something that looked an awful lot like defeat and Sherlock didn't like it at all.

His eyes flicked this way and that over John's sorrowful face. “You look very sad,” he told him softly, as if he were telling a secret. He supposed he was, in a way, John never liked people to know when he was sad.

Tears immediately welled in his blue eyes but John stood and turned away before Sherlock saw them fall. For a moment he was left to stare at the man's back, one hand resting on his hip and squeezing so hard his whole arm trembled, the other doing something to his face, presumably wiping the tears off it.

When John turned back around he seemed more or less composed, but the skin all around his eyes was red and it tugged at something deep in Sherlock's chest. Even in his head Sherlock would never make John out to be anything but what he was: a Captain who had never quite been able to let go of the idea that he had to remain straight faced and strong, even in the most dire of circumstances, so that the moral of his soldiers didn't falter.

“It's alright, John,” Sherlock said on a whim. The maelstrom inside him was quiet again, for now, and he wanted the one behind John's kind eyes to be quiet as well.

He held out his hand, palm up, his intention clear. John eyed it for a moment, hanging there between them like an offering he didn't understand, and his eyes were swimming again when he gave a gentle nod and took the three and a half steps closer to take Sherlock's hand.

John's hand was rough, slid warm and alive into Sherlock's, and John settled on the floor beside him, instantly wrapping his free arm around thin shoulders and pulling Sherlock close.

Too tired to hesitate and so far beyond caring if it was crazy to indulge in an illusion, Sherlock let his head fall to rest on John's sturdy shoulder and pressed his nose to the side of the doctor's neck. He sighed, letting the smell of wool and tea clear his head, letting the warmth from John's body seep into him like a balm to the fine tremors making him tremble against his will.

The circle of John's arm tightened and the door remained rusted.

John's hand left his shoulder, slid up into his hair, stroking gently. “We'll fix it. I promise we'll fix it, Sherlock.”

He was sure John wasn't just talking about the door and it was good to know his own mind had such faith in itself.

Later, after John had coaxed him off the floor and gone to make himself tea, Sherlock had trailed him into the kitchen, tried to ignore the way the edges of his vision refused to come into focus and refused everything John offered to make him. He wouldn't put anything else in his mouth, even water, for fear of what he might be ingesting in the waking world. His captors had forcibly taken every shred of his dignity already, the last thing he wanted was to give them the satisfaction of seeing him shovelling dirt into his mouth because he thought it was a sandwich.

John hadn't been happy about that. His face had gone a little pale, a little sick looking, when Sherlock skirted around the glass of water he'd held out like it was full of maggots.

John had switched off the kettle after that, and retreated to the sitting room without making his tea.

All the color in the room seemed to trail dejectedly after John when he left and Serlock was left trying to remember what color the apples in the bowl on the counter were supposed to be. At least he was quite sure he could feel the heat of the fire still clinging the walls, like mist clinging to a mountainside, shimmering in the air around him like a siren luring him back to the heart of his own destruction. _Come, sit by the fire_ , it said, _sit and be warm and pretend everything is fine_. So he followed it's song, the floor under his feet feeling like it might drop away if he stepped too heavily.

The fire was still going – of course it was, John would never let it die – and just the sight of it made Sherlock feel warmer inside.

He looked over and saw John standing half in the open doorway to the flat, his back to Sherlock as he swayed from foot to foot, rocking in and out of the open space. He was talking on a cell phone and the sight of it was as shocking as a slap to the face.

“Just...just give me one more day, Mycroft. Don't take him away yet, I -” was all Sherlock heard of the whispered conversation before John turned enough to spot him and the stricken expression on his face.

John quickly pulled the phone from his ear and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans, gaze on the detective all the while.

But Sherlock was still stuck, his brain stuttering. Why would...

It was a strangeness that Sherlock could not even explain, but it crawled under his skin like ants.

Why would this dreamland John be talking on a cell phone? Talking about sending him away? Why was his own mind turning away from itself? Why? _Why_? What was the _purpose_ of that? A safehouse was meant to be a sealed space where nothing could get in or out but this...this felt like there was a leak somewhere. No, it felt like John was trying to dig a hole through the walls...to let something _in_.

Sherlock hedged away when John stepped towards him, something dark and twisted squirming in his guts. Distrust. _Doubt_.

The animal growled low, it's eyes glinting in the dark.

He had a brief moment of panic, wondering if his mind was folding in on itself like a tenth dimension. A betrayal inside a betrayal inside himself. It would be a devastatingly beautiful and intricate form of destruction, but it would be destruction non the less. Fitting for a mind such as his to destroy itself with something so elaborate.

A lifetime ago he remembered staring down at his arm, skin still damp and warm, as blood seeped into the grooves of his flesh, and an idea had blossomed before him. A solution to what had just turned out to be a very big problem.

He squared his shoulders, wondered if he should just go to the kitchen and get that parring knife – the really sharp one John used to cut things up fancily – and drag it down his arms. He could do it, maybe force his way back to reality and...well, it would be easy enough to enrage his captors enough to kill him. And besides, nothing was worth this...this slow descent into madness.

The magnitude of what he was going to do crashed down on him. Everything he'd done, everything that had been done _to_ him, everything he'd managed to survive, and now he was giving up. But he figured he'd earned the right. He'd fought with everything he had and he was done now. He could at least take back some amount of control with this – they couldn't keep hurting him if he was dead.

A tremendous pit of sadness swelled deep in his chest and his heart teetered on the edge of it, nearly ready to jump, because he realized then that _this_ – this illusion and his attempts to remain stable within it – wasn't something he could have. Fate would not grant him even this small shred of solace. He would not die in peace, but in _pieces_ , mind and body.

Was what he had done truly so terrible that he deserved an end like this? He'd only been trying to _help_ , he'd only wanted to keep John _safe_. That's all he _ever_ wanted. This didn't seem fair.

He could have lived with it before – with John being so soft and nice and sitting in front of the fire while he talked – but now, hearing John whisper about sending him away, likely to some small, padded room that was much easier for his weakening mind to maintain... _no_. He'd die first. He'd tear down this whole illusion himself before he allowed his mind to throw him into a straight jacket.

He looked back at the fire as the black pit inside him grew and the cold maw of oblivion loomed behind him. He was going to miss it's warmth. Why did everything always have to be so _cold_?

“Whatever you're thinking right now, Sherlock, _stop,_ ” John ordered, his own shoulders squared in a much more convincing display of resolve than whatever Sherlock was trying to maintain. But John's eyes betrayed him, he was scared and fear oozed from between the cracks in his veneer of control like blood from an infected wound.

“I don't want to do this anymore,” Sherlock told the wall dully; he couldn't watch John crumble any more.

He was suddenly so tired, so tired that sleeping wouldn't help. He didn't just want to lose consciousness, he wanted to stop existing. He wanted there to be no possibility of waking up in that cell again – or worse, waking up _here_. “I thought I could pretend...that this would be fine – that it would be _enough_ – but...” he shook his head, that black chasm inside him roaring like a starving demon threatening to swallow him whole.

“Pretend – what?...Sherlock...?”

' _Yessss_ ,' hissed the animal, prowling the edges of the unravelling walls of his mind. ' _Yes, yes, yes. Let me out. Let me out and I'll lead you to safety.'_

A frightened beast about to chew it's own leg off to escape a trap, that's all he was.

John trailed him to the kitchen, his footsteps anxious and halting. He kept his distance, gave Sherlock space.

At least, he did until Sherlock opened the cutlery drawer and plucked the pairing knife from the mess of utensils, then John was leaping forward with a panicked noise that wasn't even words and Sherlock jerked away, outraged that his own mind was using _John_ to keep him from tearing down the walls. Well, he supposed his mind was smart – of course it was. Weakened, a little broken maybe, but still brilliant – because if Sherlock was going to be stopped by anything, it would be John Watson's face – real or not.

But he was starting to get tired of doing things only for John. He _wanted_ this, he wanted it to end, and John wasn't even _real_.

He laid his free hand flat against John's chest, shoved him away, allowed the animal to cackled like a gleeful hyena, and the doctor stumbled back a few steps, holding his hands up when Sherlock quickly rested the tip of the blade in the crook of his elbow. His entire hand was wrapped around the handle and he was quite ready to plunge it in and drag it down the length of his arm.

“Christ, Sherlock, please – don't – _don't,_ ” John was pleading, panic lacing his words; he sounded agonized, like someone had a hand around his throat. His blue eyes were wide, fearful, his mouth open and panting.

It tugged at Sherlock's shredded heart and he resolved to at least _try_ to make him understand, because even though it wasn't _real_ , he could not stand to see John hurting so plainly. Not by his hand. Not again.

“No, I'm _done_ , John. It's _over_. I can't – I _won't_ watch my mind disintegrate around me. I _won't_ stay here.”

He looked back down at his arm, pressing the blade down, hoping that this would work. It _had_ to work. He didn't know what he'd do if it didn't.

In the half second after he broke the skin – the tip of the blade cut into him like he was a hologram, he felt nothing – everything around him seemed to twitch, like he was poking the beast from inside, and he let it stutter and flicker as much as it wanted this time, urged those threads to unravel faster.

The animal clawed at the walls, shredding them.

But that was as far as he got before John's fingers circled around his wrist and his other hand splayed flat against Sherlock's chest and he found himself being violently shoved against the refrigerator, the knife slipping from his fingers and clattering to the floor.

A stab of panic cut through him at the sudden and violent movement and John's face was inches from his, his eyes burning with fury and something darker, something cold like terror that was likely trying to claw it's way up the man's throat even as he struggled to push it back down.

“ _I just got you back, don't you dare think I'll ever let you go again!_ ” John snarled viciously, his hold bruising, crushing Sherlock against the fridge.

Sherlock gasped when pain cut like a lance up his back, the nobs of his spine grinding against the unforgiving stainless steel surface, and the echo of blood freezing in his open wounds making his stomach heave.

The words and the pain were equally new and shocking. He'd never pictured John saying anything like that before but he certainly knew it was something he'd often wished he would. One of those fantasies that had kept him going sometimes, of coming back to John and John being all fierce protectiveness and snarling possessiveness. Of course his mind would supply that for him now, what a perfect distraction.

But the pain...he shouldn't be able to feel anything like that here, because then what would be the point of it? Pain was for the waking world, it couldn't exist here. What was the _point_ of his mind building this place to escape the torture if it was only going to cause him pain anyway?

As if it meant to defy him, the laws of his own little world broke for a moment to let another jolt shoot up his spine from where a nerve caught between his shoulder blade and the fridge, crushing the raw strips of new scar tissue across his back. A whimper managed to escape his throat.

At the pitiful noise, John recoiled but then surged forward again almost immediately, gentler this time but still trembling with fierce emotions. He wrapped his arms around Sherlock, pulling him close with a hand in his hair while muttering against the side of his face, breath hot against the his ear.

“Jesus, I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_ ,” John was chanting, his arm tightening around Sherlock's ribs.

There was dampness against the side of Sherlock's face, he could feel it. John was crying, dripping colors onto his skin.

The air wasn't stuttering quite so bad now.

But he felt confused. John doesn't cry. John has never cried. Not even when he was talking to Sherlock's tombstone.

But he was crying now, cradling Sherlock against him like he was made of glass. He was crying now, with a blood tipped knife on the floor a few feet away.

That black _thing_ threatening to swallow Sherlock from the inside surged up into his throat and into his veins, making his fingers tingle and sucking the air from his lungs. Of course he'd upset John, that's all he ever seemed to do, and of course it felt like a knife twisting deep in his chest. He wondered if he'd been damned to hurt John over and over for all eternity. Maybe he wasn't in his mind palace at all, maybe he was in Hell.

He realized, then, that John's agony was his agony, and the dark thing fed.

He brought his hands up and clutched at the back of John's jumper, inhaling the comforting, familiar scent of him.

“Please,” he begged against the side of John's neck, tried not to think about how vibrantly the blood pulsed under John's skin. “Please, end this. Let me die, John, _please_ , I can't stand this... _I can't stand it._..”

John's arms shook around him. “Stop, _stop_ saying those things, Sherlock. _Let me help you_...Christ, let me _in_. _Trust me_...you just need to _trust_ me.”

How could he trust a creation of his own treacherous mind?

John pulled back, placing his hands on either side of Sherlock's face – pushed color and warmth back into him – and Sherlock felt sucker-punched when he saw John's watery blue eyes. He looked devastated in a way that brought back memories of staring up past his stricken face, trying to keep his own blank and dead looking.

He swallowed thickly and held John's gaze.

“ _This. Is. Real._ ” John told him slowly, firmly, his thumbs brushing over the detective's cheekbones, smearing paint into his pores. “I -” he reached down and grabbed Sherlock's hand, laced their fingers together, pressed Sherlock's palm flat over his heart and Sherlock could feel it pounding hard against his hand, “- am real. This -” John only had to lean forward a few inches and Sherlock sucked in a breath when their lips brushed, “- is real,” John breathed shakily against his mouth, cool and salty with tears.

Sparks danced across Sherlock's lips and ricocheted around inside his head like pinballs, lighting up cold, dark corners. Making the animal hiss and recoil. John's fingers dragged through his hair, setting off a spider web of electricity that zigzagged down his spine and he gasped against John's mouth just as the man pushed forward, pressing their lips together, like it was the most natural – _the most_ _real_ – thing they could ever do.

He breathed life like a gust of spring wind into Sherlock's lungs.

John's mouth was warm and soft and he tasted like tea and smelled like wool and Sherlock surged forward, clutching at the front of John's jumper, trying to pull him closer and found himself pushed against the fridge again, gentler this time, with John's hand cradling the back of his skull as he licked along the seam of his lips and pushed into the detective's mouth. Firm, warm, real, everything that a phantom should not be.

They broke apart at the same time, breathing hard, leaning into each other, hands still clutching at whatever was closest.

Sherlock felt doubt hammering against the walls of his mind, loud and demanding his attention. This time, though, he eagerly let it in, hoped to god he'd been wrong. _Hoped_ he'd been delusional all this time.

He loved John, loved him so much that it hurt sometimes. He'd always been captivated by the man, had watched and studied and memorized things about him that the doctor would probably say were a bit not good. He'd thought about John near incessantly the entire two years he was running around the globe. Thought about what it would be like to be in his company again, to bask in the warmth of his smile and the calm of his voice and revel in the joy of his friendship...

But that was it. He'd not allowed those thoughts to go any farther because he did not want to start yearning for something that John could not give him. He'd never allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to kiss John or be held by him – dangerous, that. Too dangerous – he'd dismissed those ideas as an impossibility, a faulty data point, and moved on.

It was strange that this vision of John was kissing him because Sherlock didn't _need_ that from the real John. He never would have. He was so perfectly happy just being around John that his mind wouldn't need to conjure this up to make it better, so the fact that it was happening now gave him pause.

But nothing growled at the back of his mind now, it was quiet inside his head.  The tattered shreds of the walls remained damaged and the edges of his vision were still murky like he was trying to see through swamp water, but it was quiet and still and John's lips were still brushing against his and the floor under his feet felt a bit more solid.

It was very strange indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this up earlier but I hadn't slept in 40 some hours and it was 8 am and I was starting to see double so....anyway, i'm pretty solid on nine chapters now. One more after this and then an epilogue from John's POV and it should be done. :)


	8. Coming Home

Sherlock had to admit, even through the pleasant buzz filling his head like sleepy bees, that despite the fact it wasn't real, that had still been one hell of a kiss.

His lips were still tingling.

But even though John's touch had managed to calm Sherlock's mind for a few moments it wasn't long before his entire thought process was once again heaving like a dingy in a storm. He felt like a turtle stuck on it's back, _knowing_ that he was seeing everything upside down but struggling to get his feet under him again.

_Real_. He glanced around their kitchen, expected something to change now that he was looking for it. But the edges of his vision remained fuzzy and the furniture looked just as intangible as it had before, and his ability to _see_ the weight and color John was trying to show him remained out of reach.

“Real?” he repeated with uncertainty. Nothing had changed.

Despite his hesitancy, John's nod was still eager and a little frantic, the spark of hope in his eyes bursting into flames. “ _Yes_ , Sherlock. This is real. Me and you, standing in our kitchen at 221B with Mrs. Hudson downstairs and London and the world outside.” He licked his lips, reaching up to brush a few ebony curls away from the detective's forehead. “Those things you see sometimes, they're only memories. _Those_ times are your mind getting a little confused. Not this. Not _now_.”

An inversion of reality. Had he somehow managed to turn it all backwards? Flipped his perception inside out? He suddenly felt as if he was on the wrong side of a glass cage, looking out through it's dirty walls.

The invisible barriers in his mind seemed to bulge inward, as if something was pushing against them, trying to break through, and Sherlock felt shaken, blinking at John's patient and hopeful eyes and then around the room, expecting to see things blink and flicker back at him like they had been all this time.

Instead, this time, he saw solid edges, and furniture that had seemed for so long to be made of cardboard sunk back into the floor with an obvious but invisible kind of weight and presence. He could hear things too – like the hum of the refrigerator at his back or the dripping faucet in the bathroom – that were slowly becoming clearer and louder, like he was walking towards them from the end of a very long hallway. It vibrated through him, shaking loose cobwebs and debris in his cluttered mind that he hadn't realized had gathered there. And then somewhere, somewhere _outside_ , he heard the unmistakable sound of a car horn blaring angrily.

“Real...” He gave his head a shake, trying to set right his consciousness, which seemed to be listing to one side, rolling like a top heavy boat in the water.

No, this _couldn't_ be real. He closed his eyes and pulled back, flinched away when John reached for him again.

Real was the icy cold of Serbia and the fiery pain of torture and those moments were too real _not_ to be real. And safety was the fuzzy edges of 221B and a kind-eyed John, and those things were so far from possible that they _must_ be impossible.

“Sherlock...Sherlock look at me,” John was instructing softly and Sherlock forced himself to look up with reluctance, hardly daring to hope what John was telling him was true. “Will you take a phone call from your brother?”

He frowned at the abrupt change of subject, hearing another car horn outside. “From...Mycroft?”

Why would he want to talk to Mycroft? Why would he want Mycroft to talk to him? He could see no benefit from conjuring up his brother to consult with. But before he could try and figure out why his mind was forcing Mycroft upon him, John stepped back and brought his mobile to his ear. Though he reached out slowly while it rang, kept one hand on Sherlock's arm and his eyes, calm and patient, never left Sherlock's.

“Mycroft. I've got Sherlock here,” John said after the second ring, then held the phone out.

But Sherlock hesitated, still unsure as to why this was happening in the first place. Usually when his brother appeared in his head he was actually _there_ with him. Never, ever had he been on a phone.

The mobile inched closer to him and John's hand squeezed his arm. “It's alright, Sherlock. He just wants to talk to you. Just for a moment.”

He took the phone and both of them pretended his hand wasn't trembling.

“...Mycroft?” he asked hesitantly.

“Good afternoon, little brother.”

Sherlock's eyes darted to the windows, where the curtains were all closed tightly, but he remembered the daylight streaming into his bedroom earlier. He supposed it could be afternoon.

Behind the covered glass, the idea of buildings and cars on the road started to take shape in the vast sea of whiteness that had been there before.

“John tells me you're not...feeling well.”

It's a clumsy phrase, and if Sherlock wasn't on the verge of going absolutely insane he might have thought he heard concern lacing his brother's odd words. His brother hadn't ever spoken to him like that in real life and had _certainly_ never spoken like that in Sherlock's head.

His mind rolled sideways again, as if it meant to dump him into the sea and let him drown.

“Why are we talking on the phone?” he asked tightly. “Why on the phone?”

He ignored John's hand when it started rubbing his arm.

“How else would we talk?” Mycroft asked him, and he sounded like himself again, if a little too soft around the edges.

“We never talk on the phone when I'm...you're always just there. I look up and you're just _there_...” Sherlock rambled, threading his fingers into his hair.

“Sherlock...”

No, no, _no_ , Mycroft doesn't _talk_ to him like that. He doesn't speak gently, like he's in some kind of new-found pain that he doesn't understand.

Everything tilts suddenly and there's water leaking into the boat.

The phone is plucked from his hand.

“I'll call you back,” John muttered into the receiver before shoving the phone into his pocket. “Sherlock, breathe.”

What a stupid thing to say. He was breathing, perhaps a little faster then necessary, but he was breathing all the same.

Why was everything suddenly behaving differently? Mycroft hadn't spoken to him on the phone in his mind palace. Ever. And John would never, ever kiss him.

This couldn't be real. It _couldn't_ be.

' _Why are you so desperate to believe you're still in that cell?'_ something hissed at him _. 'What is the worser torment to you? Slipping back into torture and agony or admitting your mind has failed?'_

Sherlock dug his nails into his scalp, closing his eyes, John's voice floating up from his memory, joining that of his consciousness.

“ _You've not gone mad, Sherlock. You've just gotten a little confused. A little lost.”_

“ _You_ will _come back Sherlock! You're not_ going _anywhere...you're having a_ flashback _.”_

Tentatively, Sherlock lifted his head, made an effort to watch as things seemed to start falling into place, like he'd only just realized he'd been trying to do a puzzle upside down and John had spun it round the right way. Maybe what had felt like the edges of his mind fraying were really just flashbacks taking hold, digging in their claws and ripping at him. Maybe the fuzzy edges and fake furniture were just his eyes playing tricks on him, or his brain failing to interpret what it was seeing correctly. Maybe he'd lost track of things somewhere between flashbacks, had pushed against reality so hard that he warped how it looked. _Maybe_ John trying to give him food and _caring_ about him had all been real. _Maybe_ John talking to him for hours and hours had been his way of trying to bring him back.

After all, he was a doctor that had managed to wrestle PTSD into submission. He probably knew better than anyone how to bring someone back from the murky pit of their own consciousness.

But _still_ , something nagged at him, kept him back.

“...doesn't make sense...” he muttered to himself.

“What doesn't make sense, Sherlock?” John asked immediately. “Tell me what doesn't make sense, anything, and I can explain it, I promise.”

Sherlock exhaled sharply through his nose, suddenly angry, feeling like he was caught in the push and pull of ocean waves, tugging him back and forth, this way and that, and he was getting so tired trying to keep his head above the water. He was exhausted. He was going to drown. After all this, he was going to get swallowed up by this epic storm.

“ _You can't be here!_ ” he snarled, shoving John away from him. John stumbled back into the table, looking shocked and Sherlock advanced on him, crowding into his space and hearing the legs of the table drag loudly, skipping across the linoleum, as John pressed back into it, away from Sherlock. “You hate me! You can't even stand to look at me! You _hit_ me! How could you _possibly_ be here now? Like you _care!_ Like you're _worried_!”

John licked his lips nervously, looking sad again, but a thick wall of determination kept it distant in his eyes.

“You're talking about what happened at my house.”

“Of course!”

“Well according to you that didn't happen.”

Sherlock blinked, hitting a wall.

John's mouth dropped open a bit, a look of sudden understanding freezing him. “According to you,” he began slowly, as if turning the idea over in his head, “...according to you, this isn't even happening right now, is it? _That's_ the problem isn't it?” John said more than asked, his eyes alight with realization.

Sherlock backed away.

“You think everything that happened since Mycroft pulled you out has been a fabrication, an escape from whatever you believe is still happening to you in that...that place. So, how can you use what I...what I did as proof of the impossibility that I'm here if you believe it never happened in the first place?”

John stared at him, his eyes wide and hopeful.

Sherlock's brain ground to a halt.

_How can you use what I did as proof of the impossibility that I'm here if it never happened in the first place?_

If he'd had made up what happened in John's living room then how could he use it as a proof that John hated him, that he wouldn't be standing here before him?

“Do you understand...?” John asked him gently. “Do you see the hole in your logic?” John blinked hard, once, then took a deep breath. “I was angry, Sherlock, and I am so, so sorry for what I did. I don't hate you, I could never hate you, and _of course_ I care about you.” John hesitated, looked away. “And...Mycroft told me everything about – about why you left and...what happened while you were gone.”

Sherlock stopped listening, focused instead on trying not to vomit as his mind heaved and rocked.

This whole time...the _whole time_...

This wasn't like realizing you'd been wearing your shirt inside out, it was more like cracking your skull open and finding your own face staring back at you from inside.

“ _...just give me one more day, Mycroft. Don't take him away yet...” _

John really _had_ been talking to Mycroft and his brother likely wanted to have him committed. Probably had the best doctors the taxpayers could buy waiting on standby.

But that didn't matter right now.

Sherlock sagged against the fridge feeling a nauseating mix of anger towards his own weak mind and such a deep sense of relief that it threatened to spill out his eyes.

Betrayed by his own mind _again_ , though not in the way he'd thought. He couldn't decide if this was better or worse. He decided better, because this gave him John, holding him, kissing him with an aching sort of love that Sherlock desperately hoped he wasn't imagining. Though, given recent events, finding out he'd read too much into a kiss wasn't unlikely.

But even then, even if John's kiss and his touches meant less than Sherlock hoped, at the very least, he was home. He was _really_ home.

“Real,” he repeated, his voice sounding hollow even though it was the first time in days he'd felt the complete opposite. He felt fit to bursting with so much he didn't know what to do.

Looking back over the last few days, everything seemed to align perfectly now that he could think properly again. Now that John had so gently and patiently pointed it out to him. He'd felt oddly detached even before he'd gone to John's house, he just hadn't realized there was anything wrong. It had snuck up on him, like getting lost in the woods. He'd just kept walking, everything had looked familiar until it suddenly wasn't and by then he was already lost.

“It...” he swallowed, still reeling with relief and devastation. “It didn't feel...everything looked...”

He remembered now, the exact moment everything had been flipped upside down.

“ _Don't you – don't you_ _see_ _how...”_

_ How  _ __ dead  _ _ _ the room looked? How pale it was?  _ __ Don't you see, John?  _ _ _ The illusion of it all started to fail, _

_ patterned wall paper flickering into jagged stone. _

“ _No...”_

He'd started to doubt, in that moment, what his own eyes were telling him and he was sure it was John's sudden and unexpected appearance – so soon after he'd shown such rage – that had tipped his already unstable mind onto it's back.

“I know,” John assured him softly, taking both Sherlock's hands in his and looking into his eyes. “Sherlock, you have PTSD. You've been having extreme episodes of dissociation – that's when you feel detached from things. Your surroundings might loose color and familiar things might seem strange or sounds might seem far away,” John rushed to tell him, as if he'd been bursting to do so for days. Maybe he had. “And those times when you think you're back in Serbia, you're _not_ , you're still here...you're here with _me._ ”

John's thumb swiped under his eye and smeared a cold, wet patch into his skin.

“Those are just flashbacks, Sherlock, and _they_ aren't real.”

He nodded, clutching at John's hands and leaning down until their foreheads touched. When John's hand lifted to the side of his face again, he tilted his chin to brush their lips together softly.

“It's alright now. We'll get through this. _Together_ ,” John added firmly. “You are the strongest, most resilient man I know and this _will not_ beat you.”

He was right, of course, John usually was when it came to things like this, and Sherlock had no trouble putting blind faith in the man's words, too drained and exhausted to even think about questioning him.

Outside the flat, the ambient noise of traffic and people and _life_ was seeping back through the walls and, now that John had managed to rescue him from his head, it was as if a switch had been flipped and everything was working properly again. All his senses were taking in and processing things normally and the sudden onslaught of input – after days of fuzzy edges and muffled sound – was overwhelming.

Thing were too loud now and he twitched whenever a car horn blared or someone shouted outside on the street.

But John was right there, with a gentle hand low on his back, guiding him towards his bedroom and into bed, under the covers. He was momentarily worried that John was going to leave him there but the man slipped in behind him, wrapped his arms around Sherlock's front and pulled till they were chest to back.

Sherlock was sure he could have stayed like that forever, in the safe circle of John's strong arms, but exhaustion was creeping up on him like an unstoppable forced and his eye lids drooped.

He forced them open, took a deep breath and tried not to panic all over again when a thought occurred to him. What if when he woke up the edges of his vision went fuzzy again and everything looked like paper and plastic held together with tape and safety pins? What if...

“Shh, sleep now,” John murmured against the back of his neck. “Get some rest. I'll be here when you wake up, I promise, and we'll figure out what to do next.”

But after a few moments passed and Sherlock's anxiety became something palpable in the air over their heads, John's thumb stared stroking back and forth over his chest.

“Talk to me, Sherlock, what are you thinking?”

He turned in the circle of John's arms, pressed his face into his sturdy, wool clad chest, grabbed handfuls of his jumper and swallowed the lump in his throat. It helped that John's fingers were in his hair now.

“What if...when I wake up, what if everything is _wrong_ again?” he whispered. “What if I get lost again? That was terrible, John, I don't want to do it all over.”

“You won't, love, you won't because you know what's real now, yeah? You know I'm here and that I'll help you. You won't get lost again.”

Sherlock felt his lips twitch when he thought of himself stumbling through the dark, only to look up and see John's light shining bright, guiding him home.

“My conductor of light,” he mumbled against the soft, worn wool.

The panic clawing at him abated and Sherlock let his eyes close, confident that if he _did_ manage to lose his way again, that John would find him.

“Always,” John promised, whispering the word against the top of his head before pressing a kiss there.

There was a lot that they had to talk about in the morning, like whatever Mycroft had said about taking him away and the fact that John currently had a  _fiancé_ , but for now, Sherlock slept with John's arms around him and clung tightly to the reality of it, desperately hoping it did not slip away from him again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this still make sense? Did I manage to keep it all straight? God, this story tied my brain in knots...it 630 in the morning again...I think my eyes are bleeding. TELL ME IF THIS IS STILL ANY GOOD...

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very much appreciated and very rarely given.


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